India Good Agricultural Practices (IndG.A.P.) scheme developed by QCI now equivalent to GLOBAL G.A.P.

Quality Council of India to cooperate with African Organisation for Standardisation  Cooperation in the Sustainability Standards Ecosystem

Quality Council of India (QCI), an autonomous organization of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce and Industry hosted the International Convention on Sustainable Trade and Standards (ICSTS) in New Delhi today. ICSTS, a two-day event, has been organized by the India National Platform on Private Sustainability Standards and hosted by QCI in collaboration with the United Nations Forum on Sustainability Standards (UNFSS).

The event witnessed a bilateral Agreement between QCI and African Organisation for Standardisation (ARSO) to strengthen trade relations and harmonize standards, enhancing the global trade landscape. Benchmarking of IndG.AP. by the GLOBAL G.A.P. through the National Technical Working Group (NTWG) mechanism and creation of National Interpretation Guidelines (NIG) also took place at the ICSTS, which is expected to benefit around 12,000 farmers. Continuing with the engagement, India has inked agreements with Brazil, Mexico and now the African Regional Standards Organisation for cooperation on Voluntary Sustainability Standards.

The digitalization initiative of the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) initiative would align with its commitment to foster the e-commerce revolution, making trade more accessible and efficient in the digital age, support the IEC / ISO standards about material, product properties, calculation methods, formats of declarations, ensure Confidentiality and trustworthiness, facilitate Peer-to-peer communication decentralized architecture for full data sovereignty of all partners. ONDC identified QCI to assess Digital Readiness of entities to understand their readiness to seamlessly onboard on the Seller App in the ONDC Network.

The event witnessed presence of the esteemed dignitaries including Shri Jaxay Shah, Chairperson, QCI; Dr Harsha Vardhana Singh, Chair, India PSS Platform & Former DDG, World Trade Organization (WTO); Shri Rajesh Maheshwari, Secretary General, QCI; Dr Virpi Stucki, Chief, Division of Fair Production, Sustainability Standards and Trade, UNIDO; Mr Charles Gachahi, Eco Mark Africa, CACO and COCO Coordinator (ARSO); and Mr Santiago Fernandez De Cordoba, Chief, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) VSS Program among others.

Equivalence of national agricultural standard enables benchmarking with international norms to harmonize sustainable trade and market access. The Quality Council of India's IndG.A.P. scheme was benchmarked against GLOBAL G.A.P. via a National Technical Working Group and National Interpretation Guidelines were created to align domestic producer requirements with the international standard, intended to enable conformity assessment and market compatibility for farmers. QCI also entered a cooperation agreement with a regional standards organisation to harmonize standards and strengthen trade relations, and promoted digital readiness assessments and data sovereignty principles to support e-commerce integration.