GLOBALG.A.P. Meeting

Good agricultural practices or GAP is a set of voluntary standards designed to reassure consumers. Jonathan Needham, Vice President, Operations GLOBALG.A.P. North America says they will be holding another GLOBALG.A.P. stakeholder meeting this week.

NEEDHAM: The stakeholder meeting is what the name implies, skaleholders meaning market participants, interested parties so we as a standards organization work with international network of certification bodies. These are the independently accredited auditing companies that, under license, go to farms and test our standards and audit the farms.

This meeting will be held at the Washington Apple Commission building from 12-4pm on Thursday this week.

NEEDHAM: Washington's a very key market in the U.S. for us. It's one of our historical strongholds in a very dedicated part of our clientele and we're very committed to Washington so with the stakeholder meeting we're basically coming to an area and calling together stakeholders meaning producers, packers, shippers, consultants, trade associations, academics, etc.

Needham says this time around they will have members of their international staff on hand.

NEEDHAM: Most of our staff is based in Europe and Africa so they're 9 hours time difference so we couldn't get someone on the line or in person. In this case we're having our executive team from our European headquarters come over so they'll be onsite and can answer questions in real time.

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