When food is becoming a question of safety and health risk, everyone is becoming more conscious on what they eat. Cases of food poisoning, fake manufactured foods, African Swine Fever (ASF), Coronavirus Diseases and its forms have been reported and flooded our media outfits. Concerns on food safety have been put into question as ‘how safe is safe?’ and “how healthy is healthy?” It all boils down into safe food and farming practices.
Four farmers coming from Mountain Province were accredited and certified with Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) while 17 other local farmers were endorsed for the Philippine Good Agricultural Practices (Phil-GAP) certification as of December 2019.
Three of the certified farmers are from Bauko and one is from Sagada, Mountain Province. Also, 13 of those who are being endorsed for Phil-GAP certification are local farmers of Bauko and four from Sagada. These farmers are growing assorted fruits and vegetables such as lettuce, coffee, and citrus fruits, to name a few.
GAP in the Philippines emerged as a response of the government in meeting the demand of the customers for safe and healthy food and non-food agricultural products. GAP aims to meet the consumers’ need for products that are high quality, safe and produced in an environmentally and socially responsible way.
In addition, GAP Certification Guidelines, encourages all farmers and food producers such as individual farmers, cooperative and farmer organization, corporate farms or Produce Marketing Organizations (PMO’s), and demonstration farms to adopt GAP.
The GAP certification accredits farmers and their farms to facilitate the adoption of sustainable farming practices and thereby ensuring food safety and quality produce while having regards to environmental protection and that of worker’s health, safety and welfare; to empower farmers to respond demand of consumer; access of the country’s agricultural commodities to neighboring Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) markets and other foreign markets, and; enable consumers to exercise the option of buying safe and quality produce from traceable and certified sources.
Moreover, the requirements for GAP certification is the farm profile or organizational profile, farm map, farm layout, field operation procedures, production and harvesting records; list of fertilizers pesticides, and other agricultural chemicals used; certificate of nutrient soil analysis; certificate of training on GAP conducted by Agricultural Training Institute (ATI), Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI), Local Government Unit (LGU), Department of Agriculture Regional Field Office (DA RFO), State Universities and Colleges (SUCs), or by ATI accredited service providers; certificate of registration and other related permits such as Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Department of trade and Industry (DTI), Cooperative Development Authority (CDA), and Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) if applicable.
According to Christeta Gamunnac Sannadan, Provincial Agriculturist, the process of the certification starts in the municipal level where validation of requirements take place. If the requirements are 80% complete, it will be endorsed to the provincial level where it will be further examined and will be passed to the regional level.
She added that GAP certification is an assurance and proof that their farm’s product is good and safe especially to the consumers and buyers such as big companies. In other programs such as High Value Crops Development, they prioritize the certified farms in certain projects.
According to Rita Chung-it, 55, fruit and vegetable vendor, she is very particular in choosing the fruits and vegetables she bought. However, when asked if she would choose products coming from GAP certified farmers, she said that she prefers to buy from farmers she knew and the one with cheaper price.
In contrast, Mariella L. De Lapaz, 18, student, said that she is also particular in choosing the fruits and vegetables she buys. Also, she prefer products coming from GAP certified farmers. This is to ensure their safety and would probably help the farmers and the environment.
By Arthur Soriano Jr.