GLOBALG.A.P. Extended Application of GRASP v2

In November 2023, the GLOBALG.A.P. Secretariat announced two important updates regarding GRASP v2.

GRASP stands for GLOBALG.A.P. Risk Assessment on Social Practice. It’s a practical and time-effective checklist designed for evaluating workers’ health and safety and helping farming businesses address social responsibility challenges in global supply chains.

GRASP v2 covers four crucial areas:

• Creating a safe environment where workers can express their voices.
• Giving workers access to labor rights information.
• Assessing compliance with human and labor rights.
• Respecting child and young workers’ protection laws.

The standard is in line with the Food and Agriculture Business Principles 3 and 6 of the UN Global Compact: creating, delivering, and sharing value across the entire food and agriculture chain, and promoting access to information, knowledge and skills for more sustainable food and agricultural systems.

The improved version 2 of GRASP adopts a very broad definition of workers and labor—with a focus on subcontracted and migrant workers—and strengthens compliance with workers’ human rights and well-being, with zero tolerance for non-compliance.

The GRASP standard is suitable for farms of all sizes. Currently, it’s used by more than 120,000 agriculture and aquaculture producers in over 100 countries worldwide.

GRASP v2 replaces previous v1.3-1-i. It is mandatory from 1 January 2024. After that date, all new GRASP certifications (or expiring v1.3-1-i) will be required to upgrade to v2.

GRASP v2 was developed as an add-on to the latest versions of the Integrated Farm Assurance (IFA) standard: IFA v6 Smart and IFA v6 GFS (the GFSI-recognized version). However (and this is the first important update), GRASP v2 can be used in conjunction with IFA v5.4-1 GFS (IFA previous version) until IFA v6 GFS is officially recognized by GFSI, which is expected to happen in Q3 2024.

Vincenzo Gerri, NSF’s GOBALG.A.P. Technical Scheme Lead, said “NSF is ready to work with our GLOBALG.A.P. clients to transition their certification to GRASP v2, supporting their efforts to produce safe and sustainable food for consumers”.

Below is a summary of the current IFA and GRASP versions and relevant deadlines.

• IFA v6 Smart becomes mandatory on 1 January 2024, replacing the previous IFA v5.2.
• IFA v6 GFS will become mandatory when GFSI recognition is achieved, most likely during Q3 of 2024.
• IFA v5.4-1-GFS remains the recommended version for those needing a GFSI-recognized IFA certification until IFA v6 GFS becomes mandatory.
• GRASP v2 becomes mandatory on 1 January 2024. In addition to IFA v6 Smart, it can be used in conjunction with IFA v5.4-1-GFS until IFA v6 GFS becomes mandatory.

The other important update communicated by GLOBALG.A.P. is about fees: IFA v6 and GRASP v2 will have the same fees as IFA v5.2 and GRASP v1.3 until updated fee tables are published.