Is USDA’s GAP Program a Good Fit for Small-Scale Growers?

The USDA Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) Program enables farmers to verify and refine important food safety practices. Because institutions like schools, hospitals, and large grocery stores often require GAP certification, becoming GAP certified opens new sales opportunities for farms.

As a small-scale farmer growing on 8 acres, I’ve contemplated whether GAP certification could have value to my operation. Most small-scale farmers sell both directly to customers and to some wholesale clients. This makes the value of becoming certified less clear.

The diversity of small-scale farms also makes GAP certification less applicable to their production style. GAP requires separate audits on individual crops or crop types. A small-scale farm considering GAP would need to go through an audit process for each type of vegetable they want certified.

In hopes of shedding light on GAP and how it intersects with the reality of a small-scale farmer, I turned to food safety expert, Jay Dunbar, Local Produce Safety Coordinator at Carolina Farm Stewardship Association.

Do you feel any size farm can benefit from being Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) certified?

Dunbar: I would say that any size farm can benefit from having a food safety plan and being GAP-compliant. For a small farm, Good Agricultural Practices provide a structure for organizing and recording information essential to that farm’s success. GAPs can help a farm operate more efficiently while reducing the risk of food-borne human pathogens in farm products. This is a win-win for the farmer and the community they help feed.

How do you advise a farmer to evaluate whether GAP certification is right for them?

Dunbar: When it comes to certification, farmers need to consider whether a buyer is requesting certification. Not having GAP certification could cost a farm an important sales outlet which might be a relationship that has taken years to build. Having the certification may also open new opportunities with current or prospective buyers. However, if you can continue to grow or profitably maintain your farm business without certification, then the GAP-compliant route might be more practical.

Are there specific questions you guide farmers in asking as they explore this as an option?

Dunbar: Farmers should consider the scale and financial goals of their farm business when exploring GAP certification. If they know they want to grow a wholesale business, certification is a necessary part of the equation. Even smaller wholesale buyers such as food hubs are beginning to require farms to be GAP-certified.

What are the most common challenges small farms face when working on GAP certification?

Dunbar: The dense, technical language of the GAP Standard can be very intimidating for many farmers, and it can make the process seem overwhelming. But once the requirements are made plain, most folks catch on quickly. They also find that they are using many of these practices already.

Some farmers also struggle with recordkeeping, especially when this habit has been absent from their operations. But like any good habit, recordkeeping just takes practice and eventually becomes second-nature. Also, thanks to smartphones and farm apps, recordkeeping is becoming a little less paper-oriented!

What is an effective method to track lots for traceability on a small-scale farm?

Dunbar: Keeping good harvest records makes the lot number system much easier to tackle and tracking lots can be made a lot easier using some kind of printed label system.

For my operation, I had a harvest record that included the date, field location, and crop I harvested. With this information, I could create a unique lot number for each harvest. I also had a label printer with templates for each crop I grew. I could add my unique lot code to the label template and print out labels for that harvest. When time came to pack boxes, the labels were there and ready to go.

Is there funding out there that can help small-scale farms cover the costs of getting their production up to GAP standards and cover annual costs of record keeping?

Dunbar: USDA has funding through the Food Safety Certification for Specialty Crops Program. States also often offer programs. For example, in North Carolina, NCDA provides a cost-share for GAP certification. NCDA also has a water testing cost-share program. Together, these programs can offset the cost of certification, training, and testing.

One option for small scale growers who decide not to pursue the full GAP certification process themselves is to partner with a GAP certified food Hub. In this case, a GAP certified food hub sends a food safety expert to the farm to ensure they are GAP compliant, which enables the farm to then sell to the GAP certified food hub. For more on this, look out for a follow up article in future months.