On-Farm Sustainability and Food Safety Align
9th October 2017
SAI Platform and GLOBALG.A.P. offer new solution
Cologne, 9 October 2017 – SAI Platform’s Farm Sustainability Assessment programme (FSA) and GLOBALG.A.P. are today announcing a new solution in response to global industry needs. By answering just a few additional FSA-inspired questions, farmers using GLOBALG.A.P. can achieve industry-wide sustainability recognition. This full integration of FSA and GLOBALG.A.P. certification is an important step forward for food supply chains around the world. With one audit, farms can demonstrate GLOBALG.A.P. compliance and up to the highest level of FSA equivalence, while integrating food safety and sustainability in one on-farm approach.
Buyers that want to make sustainability claims about their produce can require the growers in their supply chains to complete the FSA ‘add-on’. The add-on ensures that a range of additional on-farm environmental best-practice is delivered, including responsible management of water and protecting and encouraging biodiversity.
Companies wanting to make FSA claims, are also seeing the business benefits due to its promise to be simple. GLOBALG.A.P. auditors are enabled to check the additional FSA questions at the same time as the standard GLOBALG.A.P. audit. This combined one-stop audit drives a more efficient supply chain allowing resources to be freed up for improvement with no extra effort.
Joe Rushton, FSA Manager at SAI Platform commented on why this alliance is so important: “GLOBALG.A.P. and the FSA is a strong partnership that naturally integrates food safety and sustainability into one harmonized on-farm approach.”
He added: “Our alliance also brings us ever closer to a common definition of sustainable agriculture, that farmers, food manufactures, and policy makers need.”
“Having implemented GLOBALG.A.P.’s food safety and farm assurance system, I have seen how, with little additional efforts, our farmers were able to add proof for the additional sustainability points during the trial assessments of the new joint product,” said Dr. Elmé Coetzer-Boersma, Vice President and Chief Standards Officer at GLOBALG.A.P. “They can now respond to the growing demand to verify on-farm sustainability and connect to more customers.”
GLOBALG.A.P. and the FSA are presenting their new solution at the ANUGA trade fair in Cologne on 9 October 2017 at 4:00 pm, and report about the ongoing trials.
