Food safety, as well as the environment protection, starts with agriculture and the primary production. Farm Assurance is becoming more and more important, as it provides controlled and more efficient production of agricultural raw materials, including aquaculture products.

Purpose

Farm assurance is the farmers response to globalisation, the increasingly competitive market and the lack of consumer’s trust. The aim is to reassure and improve confidence in agricultural products.

Looking at the food supply chain in the global market, the primary sector is a critical step not only for the food safety issue, but also for its environmental and social aspects. In other words the “agriculture sustainability” is now an issue for companies seeking to compete in the global market.

Both legislation and market drivers (retailers) are focusing on “Good Agricultural Practices” in order to gain, and sometimes to re-gain, the consumers’ confidence. Specific standards have been established to improve the performances throughout the primary sector, taking into consideration that the failure of an individual company can affect the whole sector (the impact, e.g. of the contamination by dioxin of an individual feed ingredient manufacturer is well known).

Benefits

The implementation of sufficient good agricultural practices in the framework of a properly designed quality management system is crucial to demonstrate the company’s capability to meet the requirements of customers and consumers.

GlobalGAP - IFA and GloabalGAP - Fruit & vegetables (formerly EurepGap) is the widely accepted pre-farm-gate standard, originally established by German retailers. Being the first global standard jointly managed by retailers and producers, it is based on different modules (Integrated Farm Assurance) applicable to fruit and vegetable, tea, green coffee, combinable crops, livestock and aquaculture.

QS (Quality and Safety) is a certification scheme established by German leading associations and organisations in the food industry. The scheme covers the complete supply chain, from the food retailer to agriculture and the animal feed industry. The certification system is applicable at any step of the food chain for fruit and vegetable, meat and meat products and feed.