Guatemala, home of agriculture's top global tour

By Mayora IP

Guatemala's Association of the Agricultural Chemical Guild (Agrequima) held an international conference focused on agricultural practices and promotion of national companies in the world’s markets. The GLOBALG.A.P. Tour was organized in Guatemala City on October 8, 2019, with the participation of local and international producers, public authorities and companies. GLOBALG.A.P.
is a set of standards for good agricultural practices (G.A.P.), with its roots starting in 1997 as EUREPGAP, an initiative by retailers belonging to the Euro-Retailer Produce Working Group. 

The Guatemala’s date of the global tour was set on optimizing on-farm operations and management, upgrading good agricultural and social practices, exporting products to the world’s markets, accessing national and international trade networks, boosting retail sales by responding to consumer demands and being part of the global change toward safe and sustainable food and flowers.

Lately, Guatemala has steadily become a pioneer in agricultural practices throughout Central America. According to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Country Fact Sheet, Guatemala has enhance food security and promoted regional agricultural trade by building public and private sector sanitary and phytosanitary standards (SPS) capacity, improving access to markets, enhancing food security statistical systems, and strengthening laboratories capabilities to diagnose chemical and biological pathogens and residues.

With several projects, the USAID has helped Guatemala safeguard its natural resource base through livelihood development, biological monitoring, environmental governance, climate resilience, and cross-sectoral climate policy initiatives.