For the Safety of Agricultural Products (From the Standpoint of GLOBALG.A.P and the Sustainable Development Goals)

Abstract

GLOBALG.A.P. (G-GAP), an international farm assurance program of good agricultural practices, has attracted attention with the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in Japan. The Miyagi University School of Food Industrial Sciences Affiliated Farm at Tsubonuma (Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan) received G-GAP certification for our leek production on 1 December 2018 (to 30 November 2019). We began working towards compliance with the over 200-point checklist in the summer of 2016. It is important for the person in charge to pay attention to food safety, traceability and quality management, workers' safety and health, soil, fertilizer and pesticide management, integrated pest management and sustainable water management. The checklist consists of All Farm Base(AF), Crops Base(CB) and Fruits and Vegetables(FV). We recognized five major benefits of this practice. 1) Communication about the farm work between faculty members and field staff became easier than before. 2) We had a common direction to acquire the G-GAP certification. 3) The practice of G-GAP is involved in all aspects of agricultural issues. 4) G-GAP can lead to themes in the academic issues. 5) The practice can be incorporated into the training curriculum at our farm. We thought that the mission of G-GAP and the Sustainable Development Goals are similar in several points, with ‘sustainable’ being a common word in both. We think that G-GAP can be an effective tool for students to practice farm work, and we intend to incorporate G-GAP into our training curriculum.