Every generation has a right to safe food. To protect this right today and for future generations, the world’s farms must produce safe food in ways that are socially and environmentally responsible and resilient.

Our goal is to recognize producers for their efforts to continuously produce enough safe food while safeguarding our environment and the welfare of farming communities. We support an approach that identifies and addresses risks at farm level and helps producers achieve both their own sustainability goals and those of their markets.

The GLOBALG.A.P. system and how we achieve our goals

Our Theory of Change version 1 sets out the strategies we use to achieve our goals and contribute to our vision of safe, socially and environmentally responsible farming worldwide.

Integrated Farm Assurance (IFA) is our flagship standard, taking a holistic approach through the key topics of food safety, environmental sustainability, workers’ well-being, animal health and welfare, and traceability. IFA is designed for widespread use, including by smallholders, because we believe that all producers should be able to implement responsible farming practices.

More than 200,000 producers have already committed to this goal, and the GLOBALG.A.P. system is designed to recognize and reward responsible farming practices. Our portfolio of tailored add-ons makes it possible to extend the certification scope and show even more commitment to certain topics relevant to specific aspects of production or the supply chain.

We also empower producers by developing and sharing local expertise, encouraging them to adopt safe and sustainable practices. Through this support network, we also connect them to regional and international markets, which has proven critical to successfully transforming the global food sector.

Our third-party certification and our integrity program, which monitors the activities of the certification bodies that conduct the audits, ensure consistent application of our standards and add-ons worldwide and make our system credible and trustworthy to our stakeholders.

The multiple challenges of sustainability lead us to seek collaboration with partners that share the same values, such as the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform and the Sustainable Rice Platform. This joining of forces leads to greater upscaling of responsible farming practices in the industry.

By harmonizing responsible farming practices through our benchmarking process, and using our IT tools that enable a data-driven approach, we aim to reduce the complexity of certification and help even more producers pursue their sustainability goals while gaining access to a global market.

The GGN label is our consumer-facing initiative. Through traceability and supply chain transparency, we help consumers make more conscious and responsible choices that benefit producers, retailers, and consumers around the world.

What’s next?

As part of the work towards reaching our goals set for 2025, we are fine-tuning our strategic approach to sustainability in collaboration with our members and other external stakeholders.

In order to effectively harness the increasing volume of data that we receive, and to gain a better understanding of our activities and their impact around the world, we are currently in the process of developing a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) System. Following internal development, the M&E System will be subject to public consultation before its launch, dated for early 2024.