GlobalG.A.P. (a brand of smart farm assurance solutions) provided an update to the agriculture industry at Fruit Attraction’s IFEMA Madrid. The panelists discussed the benefits of the organization’s standards for Spanish agriculture during the news update.

Topics covered include the responsible use of water at the farm level, as well as the region’s specific challenges, such as worker health, safety, and welfare in Spain.

In Spain, 44,748 producers use Integrated Farm Assurance (IFA) for fruits and vegetables. The new version of IFA will assist Spanish producers in addressing the full range of environmental sustainability and worker well-being issues, such as biodiversity, water management, energy efficiency, food waste, and plant protection products.

Water issues can be specifically addressed by the Sustainable Program for Irrigation and Groundwater Use (SPRING). Water scarcity is becoming increasingly important in the Spanish regions. With a wide range of control points and compliance criteria addressing water sources and extraction rates, consumption monitoring, sustainable watershed management, and more, the SPRING add-on assists producers, retailers, and traders in demonstrating their commitment to sustainable water management.

“SPRING is an economically viable solution designed for the reality in the fields,” commented Rene Capote, Senior Technical Expert at GlobalG.A.P.

The well-being of workers is another critical issue in Spanish agriculture. Over 217,000 workers in Spain are currently covered by the GlobalG.A.P. Risk Assessment on Social Practice (GRASP) add-on. The add-second on’s version expands and strengthens social responsibility principles and criteria in areas such as worker representation, human and labor rights, and child and young worker protection.

“GRASP can be a major factor in positioning Spanish agriculture in the world of social compliance,” GlobalG.A.P. Senior Technical Expert for GRASP, Nolan Quiros, commented.

At his turn, André Radlinsky, Specialist for Social Standards at Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund Switzerland added that Migros has been relying on the GRASP add-on in several countries and regions, including Spain, for 10 years.

“In my opinion, the GRASP add-on is especially suited to auditing small producers with few workers and producer groups of which there are many in Spain,” Radlinsky said.

The Next Steps

The final documents for IFA v6 and GRASP v2 were published in English on 29 September. They will become obligatory from 1 January 2024. From April 2023, certification bodies will be able to issue certificates for the new versions and make them visible to the market using the smart upload functionality for managing certificate information. During the transition period that will run until the end of 2023, both the previously valid and new versions of IFA and GRASP will be available in parallel.

The panel for the news update included Luis Miguel Fernández Sierra (Coexphal), Magnus Kulwicke (Edeka/Hanse Lutra SL), André Radlinsky, and Sini Süess (Migros), as well as Ignacio Antequera, Nolan Quiros, and Rene Capote (GlobalG.A.P.).

Taking place in Madrid, Spain, Fruit Attraction 2022 marked a major date in the calendar for the fruit and vegetable sector with over 90,000 visitors attending the three-day event. GLOBALG.A.P. coexhibited with Agrocolor – one of the biggest certification bodies to certify to GLOBALG.A.P. standards in Spain.