Good Agricultural Practices were first presented to the FAO Committee on Agriculture (COAG) in 2003 with the paper 'Development of a Framework for Good Agricultural Practices'. The Committee recommended that FAO continue its initial work on a GAP approach and carry out a review on development of GAP activities.
Following this COAG presentation, an expert consultation was held in Rome, November 2003 to review and confirm the basic approach, provide guidance for addressing concerns, identify strategies for implementation and recommend actions for FAO in the development and implementation of a GAP approach.
An internal workshop was also held in October 2004, comprising staff from several departments (Agriculture, Fisheries, Forestry, Economic and Social and others). The workshop identified strong country and regional demand for coordinated FAO assistance on GAP, highlighted synergies between FAO units and outlined key next steps.
A subsequent paper 'Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (SARD) and Good Agricultural Practices (GAP)' was presented to COAG in 2005. The Committee endorsed the FAO approach to GAP, recommending that it should be non-prescriptive, voluntary and not create barriers to trade, but be consistent with existing regulatory instruments, such as Codex, IPPC and OIE. It called for further clarification of concepts and principles of the FAO GAP approach.
The COAG papers, workshop reports and background material can be accessed below.