GLOBALG.A.P. North America (GGNA) announces version 2 of GLOBALG.A.P.’s Risk Assessment on Social Practice (GRASP) as an add-on module to GLOBALG.A.P.’s flagship Integrated Farm Assurance (IFA) standard. As a food safety certification in the U.S. market, IFA is inclusive of worker health and safety. Paired with GRASP, it tackles additional supply chain issues such as worker exploitation, child labor and human rights at the farm level.

GLOBALG.A.P. has benchmarked IFA plus GRASP against the International Fresh Produce Association’s Ethical Charter on Responsible Labor Practices Measurement Criteria. This enables producers to show third-party verified evidence of compliance with these practices, either voluntarily as an Ethical Charter endorser, or in response to buyer requirements. Producers who have GLOBALG.A.P. IFA certification in combination with GRASP compliance demonstrate they have taken the steps necessary to adopt the Ethical Charter.

“GRASP is widely utilized in the European market, with the adoption by major retailers for managing social risk on farms,” said Roberta Anderson, executive vice president of GGNA. “As a standard benchmarked to IFPA’s Ethical Charter, we anticipate GRASP’s increased uptake in the North American market as endorsers of the Ethical Charter seek an efficient and independently verified means to demonstrate alignment.”

How it works

As an add-on to GLOBALG.A.P.’s flagship IFA standard, IFA covers workers’ health and safety topics while GRASP goes deeper into social responsibility.

• Covers all social criteria listed in the International Labor Organization’s core labor conventions
• Relies upon country-specific interpretation guidelines for local legislation
• Assessed by trained and qualified auditors who are knowledgeable in agricultural production and interview skills
• Identifies areas of greater risk, allowing producers and retailers to direct attention and resources to those priorities

GRASP is applicable to all production under IFA including fruits and vegetables, flowers and ornamentals, hops and more. Designed especially for farms, it is available for all farm sizes including smallholders. The GRASP assessment can be combined with the IFA audit which saves time and money in meeting buyer requirements for food safety, social responsibility and more with a single audit. It supports retailers to transparently source products from operations aligned with their corporate social responsibility policies.  

GRASP v2 was launched in 2022 with updates that make it a more suitable tool for North America. More than 117,000 producers in 99 countries use GRASP as their social/labor mv

Roberta Anderson
GLOBALG.A.P. North America
northamerica@globalgap.org 
https://www.globalgap.org/uk_en/ 

Source: www.freshplaza.com