Congratulations to UNCTAD for matchmaking. Last December, UNCTAD convened a workshop in Geneva that brought together some key actors from the realms of GLOBALGAP and organic agriculture to discuss how to cooperate to pare down a mountain of certification requirements for organic smallholders (and other organic producers by default). Formerly EurepGAP, GLOBALGAP has succeeded – formidably in Europe but also elsewhere – with big supermarkets to mandate global gap certification in their supply chains. The reason? Well, the big retailers are behaving rationally to reduce their risks, primarily for passing on tainted food supplies to their customers. (GLOBALGAP markets this risk reduction program as Good (aka sustainable) Agriculture Practices (GAP), although a close look at their production requirements shows that a hefty majority of them are end-of-pipe controls to reduce the flow of toxic residues and pathogens into retailer’s supply chains. On the other hand, organic agriculture prevents many of these risks and is the real model of sustainable agriculture. But regardless of the different agricultural paradigms, the GLOBALGAP and organic people at the UNCTAD workshop had a lot to say to each other about making the lives of small producers easier.
The group, including small producers themselves, identified critical questions e.g. Why should organic producers who also need GLOBALGAP to access key supermarket accounts, have to create systems and submit to inspection of how they control the application and disposal of toxic agrichemicals on their farms? Thankfully, and especially to the credit of the GLOBALGAP folks in the room, all the participants concluded that this should not be necessary and that there should be a GLOBALGAP guidance for inspecting and certifying organic producers that omits non-applicable GLOBALGAP requirements and modifies others. The discussion also paid attention to what risk reduction the retailers are trying to achieve outside of organic standards, and an idea was hatched to create an alternative for organic producers to full GLOBALGAP certification. “Organic-Plus” modules aimed to enhance food safety and occupational health and safety on the farm could be optionally tacked on to organic standards and inspected by qualified organic certification bodies. So in the end, the blueprint for helping the producers has two prongs – a pathway within GLOBAPGAP certification and a pathway outside of GLOBALGAP certification to provide buyers with all the assurances that they are looking for from organic producers.
Four GOMA Steering Committee members played roles in the workshop. GOMA Steering Committee members, Sophia Twarog and Ulrich Hoffmann, brilliantly conceived the idea for the workshop and skillfully executed it. IFOAM Vice-President, Andre Leu and I represented IFOAM, which co-sponsored the event with GLOBALGAP and UNCTAD.
Work Lies Ahead: The question now is how to continue the work. UNCTAD, generously funded by the Norwegian government will provide the core coordinating. But expertise from GLOBALGAP and organic agriculture will be required to co-create GLOBALGAP organic guidelines and Organic-Plus modules. And then there is the stakehoder consultation and marketing communication on all of this. With IFOAM and UNCTAD already partners in this initiative, and the very plausible good fit of this topic also in FAO, why not take it up from the organic side through GOMA? GOMA’s main mandate is to assist organic producers to access markets by reducing technical trade barriers arising from the diversity or organic standards and technical regulations. Although GLOBALGAP requirements are something else again (other than organic standards) they are still potential technical barriers to trade (and in fact there were rumors a few years ago about a potential WTO TBT complaint about (then) EurepGAP. So the Steering Committee will likely be take decision about whether to add onto its plate by taking up cooperation with GLOBALGAP. This means a bit more focus on reducing barriers within the private sector as opposed to the government organic regulations. But does it seem like a good fit? Is there any “fit” of the EquiTool and/or IROCB in this initiative? What is the ratio of the cost (more work but same funding for the GOMA project) relative to the benefit (opening up access by organic producers to markets)?
What do you think?
To UNCTAD, it is a never ending technical barrier, Global Gap, IROCB and the end results are commissioning studies only without concrete results to aid farmers. You got a lot of fund sources and it gets to you all the time.
To GOMA, i feel this project has come a long way in terms of increasing market access for organic products by adopting a focussed and step by step approach. Once harmonization of standards and certification requirements for organic products between various markets is achieved, GOMA may want to expand it’s scope to Global GAP but right now this may deviate focus.
It is a good idea though, to work out synergies between two certificatio systems i.e. Global GAP and Organic.