GLOBALG.A.P. engages with the Spanish market at Fruit Attraction 2022

Madrid, Spain/Cologne, Germany (5 October 2022): GLOBALG.A.P. provided the agriculture industry with a news update at Fruit Attraction at IFEMA MADRID. The panel for the news update included Luis Miguel Fernández Sierra (Coexphal), Magnus Kulwicke (Edeka/Hanse Lutra SL), André Radlinsky and Sini Süess (Migros), as well as Ignacio Antequera, Nolan Quiros, and Rene Capote (GLOBALG.A.P.).

During the news update, the panelists discussed the benefits of the organization’s standards for Spanish agriculture. Topics included the responsible use of water at farm level as well as the specific challenges facing the region, including the health, safety, and welfare of workers in Spain.

Taking place in Madrid, Spain, Fruit Attraction 2022 marked a major date in the calendar for the fruit and vegetables sector with over 90,000 visitors attending the three-day event. GLOBALG.A.P. coexhibited with Agrocolor – one of the biggest certification bodies to certify to GLOBALG.A.P. standards in Spain.

Addressing the challenges facing Spanish agriculture

Integrated Farm Assurance (IFA) for fruit and vegetables is currently applied by 44,748 producers in Spain. The new version of IFA will support Spanish producers in addressing the entire spectrum of topics surrounding environmental sustainability and workers’ well-being, including biodiversity, water management, energy efficiency, food waste, and plant protection products.

Water challenges can be addressed specifically by the Sustainable Program for Irrigation and Groundwater Use (SPRING). Water scarcity is a topic of ever-increasing importance in the Spanish regions. The SPRING add-on helps producers, retailers, and traders demonstrate their commitment to sustainable water management, with a wide range of control points and compliance criteria addressing water sources and extraction rates, consumption monitoring, sustainable watershed management, and more. “SPRING is an economically viable solution designed for the reality in the fields,” commented Rene Capote, Senior Technical Expert at GLOBALG.A.P.

Workers’ well-being is also a topic that is very important for Spanish agriculture. The GLOBALG.A.P. Risk Assessment on Social Practice (GRASP) add-on currently covers the health, safety, and welfare of over 217,000 workers in Spain. Version 2 of the add-on expands and strengthens social responsibility principles and criteria in areas such as worker representation, human and labor rights, and the protection of children and young workers.
GLOBALG.A.P. Senior Technical Expert for GRASP, Nolan Quiros, commented, “GRASP can be a major factor in positioning Spanish agriculture in the world of social compliance,” and André Radlinsky, Specialist for Social Standards at Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund Switzerland added, “ Migros has been relying on the GRASP add-on in several countries and regions, including Spain, for 10 years. In my opinion, the GRASP add-on is especially suited to auditing small producers with few workers and producer groups of which there are many in Spain.”

The next steps

The final documents for IFA v6 and GRASP v2 were published in English on 29 September. They will become obligatory from 1 January 2024. From April 2023, certification bodies will be able to issue certificates for the new versions and make them visible to the market using the smart upload functionality for managing certificate information. During the transition period that will run until the end of 2023, both the previously valid and new versions of IFA and GRASP will be available in parallel.

GLOBALG.A.P. is a brand of smart farm assurance solutions developed by FoodPLUS GmbH in Cologne, Germany, with cooperation from producers, retailers, and other stakeholders from across the food industry. These solutions include a range of standards for safe, socially and environmentally responsible farming practices. The most widely used GLOBALG.A.P. standard is Integrated Farm Assurance (IFA), applicable to fruit and vegetables, aquaculture, floriculture, livestock, and more. This standard also forms the basis for the GGN label: the consumer label for certified, responsible farming and transparency.

The GLOBALG.A.P. brand began its journey as EUREPGAP in 1997. 25 years later, over 200,000 producers have GLOBALG.A.P. certification in 134 countries. Nearly 150 team members around the world are dedicated to the mission of spreading responsible farming practices to ensure safe food for future generations. www.globalgap.org