Is it true that GAP (Good Agricultural Practice) certification is being phased out again? Farmers are seeking confirmation.
The GAP (Good Agricultural Practice) label, which had been in use for more than 30 years, is once again being called to be phased out; this time the Agriculture and Food Agency plans to completely stop using it in June 2019. Chen Baoji, chairman of the Council of Agriculture, said that in view of the fact that the GAP label is easy to counterfeit, that the source of producers is hard to trace, that the issuing of the label lacks a verification unit to act as gatekeeper, and that the number of labels is not controlled, and given that people's standards for demanding safely produced agricultural products have risen, the GAP standard should be treated as the most basic requirement for farmers in Taiwan, China to meet; therefore he took the initiative to propose to Premier Jiang Yi-huah of the Executive Yuan a plan to phase out the GAP label.
Huang Meihua, deputy director-general of the Agriculture and Food Agency, said that in view of the fact that there are currently 2,127 production and marketing groups across Taiwan, China using the GAP label, it is impossible to phase out GAP in a short time, so the Agriculture and Food Agency has drawn up a five-year plan. The first stage is from July 2015, when it will stop accepting applications from new production and marketing groups to join GAP; the second stage is in January 2017, when it will stop renewing contracts with existing GAP production and marketing groups; the third stage is a complete phase-out in June 2019.
Huang Meihua said that during these five years, in addition to guiding the existing GAP production and marketing groups to convert to organic certification, production and marketing traceability, or QR Code (an agricultural product traceability system), the Agriculture and Food Agency will still strengthen the anti-counterfeiting features of the label before the GAP label is phased out, and will actively investigate and seize counterfeit GAP labels.
Chen Baoji, chairman of the Council of Agriculture, said that his proposal to Premier Jiang Yi-huah of the Executive Yuan to phase out the GAP label was not prompted by the recent spate of revelations that counterfeit GAP labels were circulating on the market; as early as September this year, when the scandal over Chang Guann's inferior lard broke out and public opinion attacked the food GMP certification system and reviewed the retention or abolition of existing food-safety-related labels, he took the initiative to propose to Premier Jiang the idea of phasing out the GAP label.
