Meeting consumer demands for food safety: European retailer protocols for crop protection programmes

摘要

Consumers across Europe have high expectations about the safety of their food and many are concerned about the environmental and animal welfare implications of the way their food is produced. The Euro-Retailer Produce Working Group, or EUREP for short, is a technical working party which promotes and encourages best agricultural practice in the fruit and vegetable production industry. EUREP represents leading European food retailers. EUREP seeks to respond to consumer concerns by developing Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) frameworks for benchmarking existing ICM schemes and standards, including traceability. It is establishing a single recognised framework for independent verification. The first draft EUREP Good Agricultural Practice protocol wasagreed in November 1997. Pilot schemes were done on farms to see if the EUREP GAP could be implemented in the field. Reports highlighted those areas requiring further improvements but overall improvement in compliance was significant and constant on allfarms. This demonstrates that the GAP protocol is capable of bringing about continuous improvement. Lessons from the trials have been incorporated into the current version of the EUREP GAP protocol. The protocol deals with all aspects of production. A traceability project is being co-ordinated by EAN-International with the help of national numbering organisations. The introduction of an independent verification is imminent.