Sustainable food & agriculture
Good Agricultural Practices (GAP)
Definition
Good Agricultural Practices are "practices that address environmental, economic and social sustainability for on-farm processes, and result in safe and quality food and non-food agricultural products", as defined in the FAO's 2003 COAG paper. GAP rests on four pillars — economic viability, environmental sustainability, social acceptability, and food safety and quality — codified in numerous public and private codes, standards, and certification schemes.
References
FAO definition and pillars
Overview
What it means
GAP is both a broad FAO concept and a family of operational standards: voluntary farm-level practices covering soil, water, crop protection, worker welfare, and hygiene, operationalised through audit programmes (such as USDA GAP/GHP) and private certification (such as GLOBALG. A. P.) that buyers increasingly require as a market condition.
How it is used
Farmers adopt GAP to access markets and reduce food-safety and environmental risks; governments reference GAP in agricultural policy; and certification bodies audit farms against GAP-based standards.
Why it matters
GAP is the baseline vocabulary of sustainable farming practice — the level at which sustainability principles become checklists a farm can actually implement and be audited against.