Easy Global GAP Navigation Part 2

Easy Global GAP Navigation Part 2. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report.

Making your way through a Global GAP presentation can be tedious, confusing and downright frustrating but it is also something that is becoming necessary for ag producers who want to meet new safe food certifications. Enter Juli Ogden. This cherry grower from the Wenatchee area knew there was a better way.

OGDEN: Most farmers literally work from dawn till dusk in the growing season. They're just out there working hard. I have a small farm. I started going through it at home and it made no sense so I started creating a system that would meet the rules to myself.

Ogden called it "The Farm Plan" and says that she was just trying to get something that was easy to understand.

OGDEN: And by the time my obsessiveness slowed down just a little bit, I had created something that all my farmer friends wanted and other people started using the Farm Plan and now I'm teaching it to groups of growers all over the place.

She says part of the problem before was that the classes were being taught by someone who was not a farmer and didn't know how to talk to farmers. The Farm Plan has also gotten the blessing of Global GAP.

OGDEN: I happened to meet the managing director worldwide of Global GAP in October. When he looked at my system, he was excited. He said that Global GAP has been trying to write a system for 10 years that made sense to farmers and they couldn't get it done and that mine did it.

For more information visit thefarmplan.org.

That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.