Closer look at Smart Farm Assurance Solutions by GLOBALG.A.P.

The Integrated Farm Assurance Standard (IFA) is the GLOBALG.A.P. certificate which covers Good Agricultural Practices for agriculture, horticulture, aquaculture and livestock production. It also concerns other aspects of the supply chain and food production such as Compound Feed Manufacturing and Chain of Custody.

In the last year, GLOBALG.A.P. has been revising its flagship IFA standard, as well as their other rules, standards, and add-ons. The focus groups and technical committees evaluated the current version v5 and simplified the standards.

Then, 2 public consultation periods took place, when all stakeholders were asked to review the latest drafts of the new standards.

As part of these consultation periods, GLOBALG.A.P. hosted 120 World Consultation Tour webinars with about 700 participants. They have received more than 2.500 comments on the draft documents so far. Now, the latest documents are entering a third public consultation phase and starting field trials to test the standards on the ground.

Field trials are an extremely important step in the development of new versions and standards. GLOBALG.A.P. invites all producers, consultants, and certification bodies to participate in the field trials and give feedback on the language, content, and levels of the presented principles and criteria. To learn more about the field trials see the website.

Further documents will also enter the third public consultation phase, including GRASP v3 and the “GLOBALG.A.P. General Regulations”. See the documents and comment forms here

In 2020, at Fruit Logistica, GLOBALG.A.P. outlined three key objectives for the new standards: simplification, a risk-based approach, and customized checklists. In order to fulfil these objectives, GLOBALG.A.P. is introducing new systems and services which will help bring their portfolio of farm assurance solutions into the digital era.

The 4 pillars of GLOBALG.A.P’s smart farm assurance solutions are:

- Smarter standards, including the improved version of IFA (version 6)

- Smarter systems and services through improving the integrity of the system with GLOBALG.A.P. Audit Online Hub and Validation Service and eliminating inefficiencies

- Smarter integration of data for suppliers and buyers to show conformance and improvement and to have transparency through interoperable IT systems

- Smarter approach to sustainability with a permanent improvement program, a dedicated biodiversity add-on, and stronger environmental criteria.

See their website for more information.