Thursday, April 20, 2017

GAP: Farmer’s Road to ASEAN market

Johnny Concon, DA Caraga GAP focal person talks about GAP certification
The sure ticket for Filipino farmers to seize the opportunities on the ASEAN market is through Good Agricultural Practices (GAP).

Supervising Agriculturist Isabelita Ocampo of the Agribusiness and Marketing Assistance Division (AMAD) of Department of Agriculture Caraga said that quality is the name of the game on ASEAN market.

“If your product is not GAP certified you can’t access the ASEAN market”, she said.
GAP is the common parameter for ASEAN products wherein member countries can market their products as long as it conform the standards.

To broaden the understanding of Caraga vegetables farmers on GAP, DA Caraga conducted a training-seminar on GAP recently.

The training was participated by farmers, students, consumers and traders.

GAP focal person Johnny Concon emphasized the importance of following the GAP standards as it ensures safe and quality food products.

GAP approach aims at applying available knowledge to addressing environmental, economic and social sustainability dimensions for on-farm production and post-production processes, resulting in safe and quality food and non-food agricultural products.

To encourage Caraga farmers to be GAP certified, Concon said that DA Caraga will assist those interested.

“GAP certification is free and DA Caraga is ready to assist the farmers”, Concon said.

The certification is open for individual, associations or cooperative with basic requirements such as GAP training certificate, farm map and location and farming practices records. (Aurelius P. Arais/DA Caraga)

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