Why Should I Get GAP Certified?

By Dr. Timothy Woods, Agricultural Economics, University of Kentucky
University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension and the Kentucky Dept. of Agriculture have been pushing hard on training and certification for growers for standardized good agricultural practices. These standards include record keeping for farm sanitation, rodent control, worker sanitation, isolating non-compatible farm practices, and other practices that follow common sense. The issue for many, though, is why the record keeping? Why certify that these things are in place and practiced on the farm? There are at least three good reasons.
1. Marketing quality assurance – Ready or not, the food sector is putting quality assurance controls throughout the supply chain. Although a relatively small number of food safety problems originate from the farm, supply chain leaders recognize that programs like
GAP have to be implemented with careful record keeping through the entire supply chain – farms included. Buyers looking up the supply chain to those who they would select as preferred suppliers will look first to those individuals that have some credible measure of quality assurance.
Most large scale farm operations already have third party certifications for HACCP and verifi ed implementation of other quality assurance programs. Having this kind of certification even in a direct marketing setting, is becoming an increasingly important selling point.
2. Fragile industry reputation – It only takes one bad experience to negatively impact a whole supply chain. The recent scares with e-coli and spinach and listeria and bottled milk substantially shape consumer concern about product safety and, subsequently, entire demand for
the product. Whole regions and producer groups are tied, typically, to quality assurance breakdowns. Again, many of the producers that focus on direct marketing may think they are exempt from being impacted. All it would take would be for one bad incident traced to a farmers market and it will impact them all. GAP doesn’t provide 100% quality
assurance. Nothing does. But the record keeping of good management practices being implemented helps reduce the overall frequency and risk of bad things happening.
3. Management awareness – Many farmers have a management plan in their own mind and may, indeed, be very conscientious. The advantage of having a formalized GAP management and recordkeeping system in place, is that farmers are able to better connect their employees to the quality assurance plan. More practically, there is great value in formalizing something like this into a practical management plan. Great worksheets are available to track these practices. Busy farmers can benefit from taking a moment to check off when certain practices have
been implemented and strengthen their own management system. Right now it’s voluntary and easily implemented. GAP training is being offered in many locations. County agents are gearing up to offer the training in collaboration with the Kentucky Department of Agriculture. Farmers that are involved in production and marketing where quality assurance is of the essence should not look at this as optional, for the reasons stated above. GAP just makes good marketing and management sense.

For more news of interest to vegetable growers, read the Kentucky Vegetable Growers Newsletter. This article was taken from the Winter 2008 issue.

[return]