GLOBALGAP Certification for Good Agricultural Practices

Introduction 
Due to global expansion in food trade, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has set as one of their objectives the opening up of trade between countries and aims to address restrictive trade barriers. Sanitary and phyto-sanitary (SPS) issues have always been important in global trade and have become one of the most important potential Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT). Pests or pathogens may exist in one country but not in another, thus ultimately resulting in restrictive TBT. In addition, food safety has become one of the most important minimum requirements for future trade with developed countries. The rapid increase in newly reported cases of outbreaks of food-borne diseases particularly associated with fresh produce has been the primary drive towards establishing minimum food safety standards. To be part of global trade in fresh produce and food related products it will in future require compliance to some kind of food safety assurance system.

The global drive towards ensuring safe food supplies must also be seen as part of the focus on food security. Safe food must be ensured in both developed and developing countries and appropriate legislation needs to be put in place to address these concerns. The global emphasis on safe and secure food supplies must also be seen against a backdrop of an increasing number of immuno-compromises people (i.e. HIV / AIDS) as well as increased outbreaks of diseases such as cholera and typhoid, particularly in developing countries, which are often causes by inadequate sanitary measures and contaminated drinking water.
With respect to developed countries such as the European Union, the importance of food safety was emphasized by the recent outbreaks of BSE (Mad Cow disease) and Food and Mouth disease as well as traditional concerns with environmental pollution, particularly pesticides and the issues surrounding Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO). In contrast to this, the main focus of concern in the United States of America is the reported outbreaks of food borne diseases often associated with the consumption of fresh or processes food.

In this scenario the importance of microbial contamination is of major concern and has been the driving force behind the establishment of the USA Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) policies and surveillance systems. Currently, there are numerous systems that growers can adopt to ensure safe food production, which include amongst others Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP), Good Hygiene Practices etc.