GLOBALG.A.P. Integrated Farm Assurance version 6 is the standard more than 195,000 producers in over 130 countries are certified to according to GLOBALG.A.P.’s published figures, including more than 5,600 in South Africa. Its records are the hardest in food safety to keep on paper, because they are generated in a field, a packhouse and an office by people who rarely sit at the same desk. A spray record is created by the operator on the tractor. A harvest hygiene check happens at the edge of the orchard at 05:30. A worker training record is made in the shed. Traceability runs from the block to the pallet. A clipboard does not travel well between those places, and the inspector sees the result as gaps.
The records IFA v6 inspectors spend the most time on
The IFA v6 checklist for fruit and vegetables runs to several hundred control points, but inspection time concentrates on a handful of record groups. Plant protection product records, which must show the product, the target, the date, the operator, the dose, the pre-harvest interval and the justification. Harvest and post-harvest hygiene, including worker hygiene checks and the cleaning of containers and equipment. Worker health, safety and welfare, including training records and first aid. Traceability from the registered production site through harvest to dispatch. Water risk assessments and test results. And the internal self-assessment against the full checklist, which must be completed before the inspection and is the first document most inspectors ask for.
Spray records, done at the tractor
The non-conformance we see most often on South African farms is a spray record with a missing field. On ASCloud’s GLOBALG.A.P. Primary plan the spray record is a form on the operator’s phone with the registered product list loaded, so the product, dose and pre-harvest interval are selected rather than written, and the harvest date on the block is automatically checked against the interval. The record is complete when it is saved, because the form will not save without the required fields. The agronomist verifies on the same day from wherever they are.
Harvest hygiene and the 05:30 problem
Harvest hygiene checks happen early and in the field. On paper they are the sheet that gets filled in later from memory. On a phone they are a two-minute checklist with photos, timestamped at the moment it was done. The packhouse manager sees that every team was checked before picking started, and the inspector sees a record that could not have been made at the desk the night before.
Training and worker welfare
IFA v6 asks for evidence that workers are trained in hygiene, in the safe use of plant protection products where relevant, and in their rights and the farm’s welfare policy. With seasonal labour, the register is out of date within a month on paper. On ASCloud each worker has a record with training dates, the next refresher due and the trainer, and the system flags anyone on the roster whose training has lapsed before they start a shift.
Traceability from block to pallet
Inspectors will pick a pallet in the cold store and ask to trace it back to the production site, the harvest date and the inputs applied, and then forward to the customer. On a paperless system with the traceability module, the pallet label carries the lot, the lot links to the harvest record, the harvest record to the block and the block to its spray and water records. The trace takes minutes, which is also what a retailer expects when they run a mock recall on your product.
The self-assessment and the inspection day
The internal self-assessment is a full run through the IFA v6 checklist, control point by control point, with evidence noted. On ASCloud the checklist is loaded with the control points and compliance criteria, each one linked to the records that evidence it, so the self-assessment is a review of what the system already holds rather than a separate exercise. On inspection day, the inspector works through the same checklist on a tablet, and the farm can show the record behind any control point in a few taps.
GLOBALG.A.P. records on a phone
IFA v6 control points loaded, spray records that cannot be saved incomplete, harvest hygiene with photos and timestamps, and block-to-pallet traceability. Primary plan from R2,500 per site per month.
Frequently asked questions
Does it work in the field without signal?
Yes. The app records offline and syncs when the phone reconnects, keeping the original time of each entry.
Can it handle the add-ons such as GRASP or a retailer module?
Yes. Add-on checklists are loaded as additional standards on the same site, which is priced as an additional standard at R2,400 per site per month.
What about multi-site or producer group certification?
Each production site or member is a site on the account. The group’s QMS records and the internal inspection programme run from the same system.
Is ASC a GLOBALG.A.P. certification body?
No. ASC implements and trains on GLOBALG.A.P. and maintains the IFA v6 content in ASCloud. Certification is by an approved certification body.