New Delhi: The Andhra Pradesh Government launched INDGAP Verification Programme that ensures quality in the food production system.
Quality Council of India (QCI) Chairman Jaxay Shah and Principal Secretary (Agriculture) Gopal Krishna Dwivedi exchanged the certification agreement documents in the presence of the Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy recently.
INDGAP, launched by Quality Council of India (QCI), is a voluntary certification scheme that provides a mechanism, which gives direction to introduce quality in the production system to ensure food safety and hygiene, thereby increasing the acceptability of the produce by consumers and the food processing industry.
The INDGAP is aimed to address quality and quantity of the produce obtained from a unit area; various aspects of food safety; pre and post-harvest practices, including workers’ health and safety and sustained supply of produce of the desirable quality.
The certification assumes significance in view of global disruption in the supply chain and the prevailing food crisis in many countries. The INDGAP certification has key components like soil amendments and manuring, planting material, water management, usage of pesticides, workers’ health, safety and training, harvesting practices and field sanitation and traceability and record keeping.
Through GAP certification, the Andhra Pradesh government provides the facility to export the crop yield of farmers with quality standards at a premium price, not only domestically but also to more than 100 countries in the world. Other countries recognise the GAP certification given to farmers in our country as INDGAP certification. In the future, the INDGAP certification standards will be aligned with the Global Gap certification standards.
Then the commercial demand for agricultural and horticultural products grown by farmers will be high in the world market. The QCI has developed the INDGAP certification scheme with the objective of promoting good agricultural practices in India. It has been developed keeping in mind the needs of the domestic and international markets. GAP certification is done in five categories, namely fruits, vegetables, composite crops, tea, green coffee and spices. /BI/
