Food Quality Magazine
ISSUE 03 | JULY 2015
GLOBALG.A.P. has updated its farm and feed
standards and regulations to Version 5
GLOBALG.A.P.
The GLOBALG.A.P. Board has announced the introduction of the update
to Version 5 of its Integrated Farm
Assurance Standard for Crops and
Aquaculture. The update follows a
four year routine cycle of continuous
improvement, and with respect to
stakeholder involvement and impact,
the current revision has been the
most comprehensive amendment to
date. It will have a direct and significant effect on all 150,000 producers
around the world certified in accordance with GLOBALG.A.P.
The new version is applicable immediately as early update choice in
parallel to the current Version 4 and
will be mandatory for all new and recertification audits by 1st July 2016.
The biggest revision in the history of
GLOBALG.A.P. now incorporates the
latest research as well as government
requirements including compliance
with proposed rules by the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration as well as
EU Food Safety Law. This once again
underlines the fact that, although
GLOBALG.A.P. is a private standard,
it strives to incorporate applicable
public and/or governmental guidelines and responds to new trends and
threats in the Fruit & Vegetables,
Feedstock and Aquaculture in-
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dustries. In particular the update
also addresses the issue of microbial
risks.
GLOBALG.A.P. Board Member
Hugh Mowat from Wm Morrison
Supermarkets Plc points out: “Food
safety has always been a key platform
of the GLOBALG.A.P. Standard and
GLOBALG.A.P. has undoubtedly made a major contribution toward maintaining consumer safety since its
inception in 1996. In the light of
ongoing food safety scares resulting from microbial contamination,
GLOBALG.A.P. has now been taking
a proactive approach to strengthen
existing controls. These changes
are science-based and will support
growers by providing a safe framework within which to grow food,
as well as protecting them in the
event of an incident.”
The update is also based on the roughly 2,000 comments from all continents received during the two public
consultation periods. These were
then reviewed by technical committees in extensive, time-consuming
consultation to assess applicability and implementability. Ignacio
Antequera, Technical Key Accounts,
GLOBALG.A.P. explains: “All of this
major effort of Revision V5 would
not have been possible without tremendous time commitment of all
our committee members. For the
last 4 years they invested a total
of more than 2,600 expert hours.
More than 110 organizations were
represented in more than 70 days of
meetings and webinars. I sincerely
wish to thank all the stakeholders for
their time and effort they have put in
to make this revision a success.”
Guy Callebaut, Vice-Chairman of
the Board VBT/BelOrta, Grower, and
Chairman of GLOBALG.A.P., goes on:
“The new Version 5 addresses major
risks and trends in addition to food safety, e.g. the sustainable use
of water. With this comprehensive
revision and our global spread we
have strengthened our position as a
global reference standard for good
agricultural practices. We are also
continuing to work against the trend
of double standards and to contribute to the harmonization of standards
in order to create incentives for farmers around the world to undertake
safe and sustainable production.”
Read more about Version 5
and download the IFA Standard
Documents for V5 here.