Dhulikhel.- The Government of Nepal, Ministry of Agricultural Development (MoAD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has jointly organized a 3-day Trainers' Training for Auditors and Inspectors for Good Agricultural Practice Scheme on 15-17 September 2015 in Dhulikhel.

Good Agriculture Practices (GAP) is a voluntary standard for food safety, quality control, environment friendly and worker welfare friendly standard which ultimately contribute for sustainable agriculture.

GAP is collection of principles to apply for on-farm production and post-production processes, resulting in safe and healthy food and non-food agricultural products, while taking into account economic, social and environmental sustainability.

Nepal along with Bhutan and Maldives is getting ready to implement GAP in the common ground of SAARC GAP on fruits and vegetables. India, Thailand and Philippines have already implemented their own GAP Standard.
GAP is mainly consumer driven standards which is designed to contribute in trade facilitation, ensure food safety and workers' welfare.

Officials from Ministry of Agricultural Development, Department of Agriculture, Department of Livestock, Department of Food Technology and Quality Control, Plant Protection Directorate and Soil Management Directorate and District Agriculture Development Offices of Kavrepalanchok and Dhading participated in the training. The course has covered the recently developed Nepal GAP Scheme including four different modules- Food Safety Module, Product Quality Module, Environmental Management Module and Worker Health, Safety and Welfare Module. Similarly, the training has covered the ISO 19011, ISO 17065, ISO 17021 and ISO 17025. However, more focus has been given to ISO 19011.

The trained persons are expected to become auditors for Nepal GAP Scheme after adoption of the Standard by Government of Nepal and its implementation started.

Speaking on the closing session of the training, Mr. Uday Chandra Thakur, Joint Secretary at Ministry of Agricultural Development, requested the participants to be proactive in their respective field focussing on their crucial role for successful implementation of Nepal GAP.

Pointing out at increasing health and food safety concern, he said that implementation of GAP has become essential to protect consumers from food related diseases.

FAO, on request of some countries of SAARC, is implementing a regional project on "Development of Standards and Scheme for Good Agriculture Practice (GAP) Implementation and Certification in countries of SAARC" under which it has developed a common standard SAARC GAP for the horticulture sector as a basis for GAP in the region along with criteria for certification based on international requirements. This SAARC GAP Scheme which has been developed as a regional scheme can then be adopted as such or adapted by countries to suit their needs.

Earlier on 3 March 2015, the Government of Nepal, Ministry of Agricultural Development (MoAD) and the FAO jointly organized the National Stakeholders consultation workshop on Good Agriculture Practice (GAP) scheme for Nepal with an objective to focus on the "Development of Standards and scheme for Good Agriculture Practice (GAP) implementation and certification in countries of SAARC".