It is every human right to live in a livable and healthy environment. But it is the duty of people to protect nature and keep the environment healthy. Nevertheless, people continue to do so much harm to nature during agricultural activities to produce foodstuffs they need. According to estimates, the world population in 2050 will be 9 billion. With this population growth, more and more diverse foods need to be produced. However, excessive use of pesticides in agricultural areas, wrong irrigation and fertilization, and studies on genetically modified foods are used unconsciously and irresponsibly. In this case, new agricultural areas will be needed. This triggers the danger of extinction of forests and pastures. Between 1990 and 2000, the rate of destruction of forests in the world was calculated as 2,3 per thousand. This rate increases to 10,4 per thousand in Asian countries.
As a result, this shortage of population growth leads to a decrease in production areas per capita, water scarcity and an increase in agricultural products deficit.
The unconscious use of chemicals in agriculture increases the risk of this situation. In this way, residues are found in agricultural products and animal feeds, chemical pollution in water increases, workers in agriculture experience excessive contact with chemicals, microbiological pollution increases and greenhouse effect creates climate changes.
By maintaining this situation in this way, people are inadvertently preparing their own endings. As a matter of fact, the use of chemicals in agricultural production cannot be completely prevented. But at least it can be kept under control by the restrictions to be imposed. Thanks to this understanding, good agricultural practices were initiated in the world.
Good Agricultural Practices in the World
Good agriculture or proper agriculture means reliable and sustainable agriculture. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in the USA and Euro Retailer Producer Group (EUREP) have been conducted in the USA.
Founded in 1997, the European Retailers Association immediately started the work on the Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) standard. 1999 also published the EUREP-GAP protocol and explained the principles of good agricultural practices in fresh fruits and vegetables. Today, the most comprehensive good agricultural practice is the EUREP-GAP protocol.
The European Retailers Association accounts for almost 80 of the world's fresh fruit and vegetable market. Since the very large markets, which are members of the European Retailers Association, started to choose agricultural products with EUREP-GAP Certificate, other world countries started to realize the importance of good agricultural practices. appropriate shape. Today EUREP-GAP Certificate is given in 2002 countries worldwide.
The EUREP-GAP standard is based on the basic principles of the food safety system and has identified the critical control points in all production stages in the HACCP Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points System and sets the compliance criteria for these points. In other words, EurepGAP is a whole combined with GAP and HACCP principles.
The EUREP-GAP standard consists of three different documents:
• General regulations: Describes the procedures to be followed when receiving the document.
• Control points and adaptation criteria: Describes the method to be followed when performing good agricultural practices.
• Checklist: A list of critical points in all stages of production for the producers and auditors to follow.
In the EUREP-GAP standard, the critical control points are determined as three types:
• Critical mandatory criteria: These criteria must be met in full. If these criteria are not met, the certificate is dropped.
• Critical non-mandatory criteria: At least percent 95 of these criteria must be fulfilled.
• Possible criteria: These criteria are suggestions.
Benefits of Good Agricultural Practices
In the light of the above explanations, good agriculture means an agricultural production that does not harm human and animal health and nature. The agricultural production model, which is designed to protect natural resources and the environment, to ensure traceability and sustainability in agriculture, and more importantly to ensure food safety, is called good agricultural practice.
The benefits of good agricultural practices can then be explained as follows:
• Protecting natural resources and promoting environmental awareness
• To prevent air, water and soil pollution
• Ensuring planned production
• Creating storage and recycling facilities for waste
• To ensure the welfare and healthy development of livestock
• Not using prohibited substances in production activities
• Providing traceability and sustainability in agriculture
• Ensuring food safety
In short, with good agricultural practices, it is aimed to achieve an agricultural production that does not harm nature, human and animal health.
Good Agricultural Practices in Turkey
In the export of agricultural products from our country, especially the big international suppliers in the European Union are looking for EurepGAP Certificate. In addition, consumers in our country are now becoming conscious and demanding safe food production that protects the environment and does not harm the environment. In order to create food security and solve food safety problems in this respect, a number of policies are developed which are economically profitable, socially viable, do not harm the nature and provide sustainable development. Legal arrangements are also made to prevent practices that harm nature and to ensure sustainable agricultural production in the long term.
Within this framework, taking into account the conditions of our country, the Regulation on Good Agricultural Practices was issued in 2004 in line with EurepGAP principles.
At the same time, companies that produce in accordance with both this regulation and EurepGAP standard requirements apply to a certification body and request EurepGAP Certificate.
The EurepGAP standard defines minimum requirements in the international arena and is voluntary. The aforementioned Regulation is a legal regulation published in our country and it is an obligation to comply with it. However, it cannot be said that the manufacturers in our country are still fully conscious. We are still discussing how high the price of such products can be sold by looking at traditional products. For this reason, besides the spread of good agricultural practices, consumers and everyone involved in the marketing chain should be at the same level of consciousness.
With the better understanding and spread of good agricultural practices, fruit and vegetable production and export will increase in our country and more reliable products will be offered to domestic and foreign markets. In addition, reliable and healthy products will be paved for the people of our country. No matter how far behind these practices are, competition problems will be experienced against both European Union countries and world agriculture, and production and exportation of our country will be in trouble.
With this fact, in recent years, with the support of the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock, very successful results have been achieved in terms of good agricultural practices.
With good agricultural practices, both the quality in production, the environment in which the agricultural production is made and the health and welfare of the workers in production are taken into consideration, the following standards are kept together:
• ISO 9001 Quality Management System standard
• ISO 14001 Environmental Management System standard
• OHSAS 18001 Occupational Health and Safety Management System standard
Products produced in accordance with the principles of good agricultural practices, with good agricultural practices certification studies,
• Produced in accordance with quality conditions,
• Does not contain chemical, microbiological and physical residues harmful to human health,
• During production, live life is not negatively affected
• Produced without polluting the environment and destroying the natural balance, and
• It is not a problem in terms of legal regulations of the countries where it is consumed.
is guaranteed.
our organization TÜRCERT Technical Control and Certification Inc.Is ready to help with any doubts about Good Agricultural Practices and certification work.