Moving forward toward safe and sustainable agriculture

Consumers worldwide want to be sure that the food they eat is healthy and safe. That’s why more and more retailers are requiring their suppliers to provide certifications. But this is a dilemma for many producers, especially those in emerging countries. They are not able to achieve the required standards, but they cannot access the market without certification. This is exactly where the new BayGAP service program comes into play.

If you wanted to learn to fly you wouldn’t start with a jumbo jet, would you? Of course not – you would start with something smaller. The same applies to standards for the production of fresh food such as fruits and vegetables. GlobalGAP is the certification scheme which sets the highest standards. “To give just one example: if you are a producer from Costa Rica exporting bananas to the European market, you will definitely need to have GlobalGAP certification,” says Ronald Guendel, Global Head of Food Chain Relations at Bayer.

Challenging standards
GlobalGAP was started in 1997 upon the initiative of retailers, with the objective of harmonizing standards and procedures as well as developing an independent certification system for Good Agricultural Practices (GAP). Today, GlobalGAP is the world’s leading farming assurance program, with more than 228 certified products and over 140,000 producers in 118 countries. This benchmark system translates consumer requirements into sustainable production methods.

For many years, Bayer has helped producers worldwide to obtain GlobalGAP certification by holding training sessions and giving advice. “The set of standards includes more than 200 control points. It takes a lot of expertise to meet all of the requirements,” says Ronald Guendel. Sometimes this is too much to ask of small and medium-sized farms in developing countries with a low level of technology.

Read more at Food Chain Partnership