All You Need to Know About Public Consultation

Over the last two years, GLOBALG.A.P. has been coordinating the revision of its flagship Integrated Farm Assurance (IFA) standard. Public consultation rounds have been an extremely important part of the process. But what is public consultation and why should you take part?  

Back to the basics – What is public consultation?  

Public consultation is when we ask for input and feedback from all stakeholders during the revision process of GLOBALG.A.P. standards and add-ons. This means that you– regardless of whether you are a producer, certification body, retailer, consultant, or otherwise engaged in the agribusiness sector – have a chance to draw on your own experiences and let us know how potential changes to GLOBALG.A.P. products would affect you.  

Public consultation and IFA v6 

From May 2020 to June 2021, three public consultation rounds took place, each with the newest draft standard documents. Stakeholders were invited to review the drafts and provide feedback. During these three rounds we received a total of 3,938 comments and hosted 120 World Consultation Tour webinars with 695 participants.  

A third public consultation round also included field trials in six different countries to test the standard on the ground.  

Based on feedback from the public consultation rounds, the GLOBALG.A.P. Secretariat decided to launch IFA v6 in two editions:  
IFA version 6 Smart– our flagship IFA standard, appropriate for the majority of producers 
IFA version 6 GFS– our IFA standard adjusted to fit GFSI requirements for those producers who need GFSI recognized certification 

To ensure that all stakeholders have the opportunity to see and comment on IFA v6 Smart, a fourth public consultation took place in August and September 2021. 

Public consultation and GRASP 

GRASP - the GLOBALG.A.P. add-on for social welfare – underwent a revision process, including two rounds of public consultation. Over the two rounds we collected nearly 800 comments on the GRASP version 2 checklist. Thank you to those who participated!  

Join in!  

So now you know the importance of public consultation, why not join in next time to have your say?  

The next upcoming public consultation will be for IFA v6 for theHop sub-scope. This public consultation will take place from 11 October to 5 November. Information will be published on this page. Stay tuned!