Certification standards body GlobalGAP has called on fresh produce industry stakeholders to continue their efforts towards full harmonisation of regulations governing good agricultural practice in North America.
During the fourth stop on its GlobalGAP TOUR 2009, in Alexandria near the US capital Washington DC, the organisation insisted that the process of standard harmonisation implemented within almost 100,000 companies in 100 countries worldwide could be applied successfully to the North American industry.
'It works in all those countries, why should it not work here as well?' remarked Nigel Garbutt, chairman of GlobalGAP. 'Especially we can bring to the table our learnings on how to assure high third party auditor performance and how to retain and build market access for local small- and medium-sized family farms.'
David Gombas, GlobalGAP sector committee member and senior vice-president for food safety and technology at the United Fresh Produce Association (UFPA) stated that it would be ideal if a North America good agricultural practice standard could be developed through the UFPA's existing harmonisation efforts, which he said would also serve as an interpretation guideline for GlobalGAP in North America.
'The intention of our Produce Good Agricultural Practice Harmonization Initiative is to partner with all willing GAP standard owners, including GlobalGAP, in a mutual goal of standards harmonisation,' Dr Gombas told delegates.
To that end, a new GlobalGAP National Technical Working Group will be founded in conjunction with the first meeting of the Technical Working Group of the Harmonization Initiative on 18-19 November in Herndon, Virginia.
Howard Popoola, senior director of food safety and quality assurance at US Foodservice, a major distributor, welcomed the move.
'US Foodservice supports GlobalGAP partnering with the Produce Good Agricultural Practice Harmonization Initiative of United Fresh, because it fits well with our sourcing policy and our efforts to implement standards including GlobalGAP into our requirements for national and foreign producers,' he said.
Michelle Smith, senior policy analyst at the US Food and Drug Administration, upated the audience on current rulemakings, third-party certification and product tracing initiatives.
She also stressed the need to continue the path of building strong private-public partnerships to reduce food safety risks for consumers.
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