Agriculture production always has the disadvantage of being in a weak position within the value chain and sales, for which many people reject agriculture as a high profit business.
But, one of the few ways to add value to the fresh fruit without processing it, that means without the need to get into additional business, is to obtain certifications for the fruit itself.
Certifications are close related to a export project because generally the only markets who pays for them are developed countries as USA, Canada, Japan, Europen Union and lately China.
Likewise, and certified export operation requires a projected volume of fruit to produce in 20 tons multiple of fresh fruit.
Certificates allow an agriculture production company count on with the following advantages:
- The fruit automatically increases its value without the need of processingThe same fruit but certified. So much so that organic fruit is valued around 2 to 3 times
- Is much easier to sell. The commercialization of certified fruit makes much easier to sell it and happens that fruit with no certifications at all cannot be exported.
- The profits of a farm that produces certified fruit (social or organic), is far higher to a conventional production farm.The Internal Return Rate (IRR) in organic production easily reaches a 40%
Behold we list most usual certifications for USA and EU export markets:
- GLOBAL G.A.P: Its name means Global Good Agricultural Practices, wich fundamentals are the safety and traceability
- Organic USDA:This is the standard organic fresh fruit certificate for the US market and means the fruit had to be produced according to friendly environmental practices, to the farm workers and zero residuality for around 435 pesticides and agrochemicals.
- Organic NOP:The european organic fresh fruit standard, the equal of USDA organic for the european market.
- GRASPis a Global G.A.P. add-on for the evaluation of workers' well-being at farm level. It covers four major social responsibility topics: workers' voice, human and labor rights information, human and labor rights indicators, and child and young workers' protection.
- Rain Forest AllianceThe Rain Forest Alliance standard is a very complete standard, since to hold this seal, requirements for safety, traceability, environmental protection, protection of biodiversity and application of very well implemented social standards must be met.
Many times the profitability of agricultural projects loses points because there is a lack of knowledge in the implementation of these standards. Consult us for more information and to help you improve the profitability of your project with certifications already implemented or new projects that you want to know about their feasibility and the impact of these standards.