GlobalG.A.P. crop registration and audit
GlobalG.A.P. is not a legal requirement but a condition set by your buyer: without a certificate, your produce will not get into the retail chain. Appfront builds the software in which the records are created where the work happens, in the field or in the greenhouse, so that the audit file is in order on the day the auditor arrives.
What GlobalG.A.P. requires from your records
The standard is called Integrated Farm Assurance and is now at version 6, with two editions: IFA v6 Smart and IFA v6 GFS. The Smart edition has been mandatory since 1 January 2024, and from 1 May 2026 it also replaces version 5.2 for combinable crops and plant propagation material. The GFS edition was recognised by the Global Food Safety Initiative in August 2024, which makes it suitable where buyers require a GFSI-recognised standard.
Every registered producer is assigned a unique thirteen-digit number, the GGN, which is used throughout the chain to verify the certificate. Your buyer can use it to check whether your certificate is valid and which products and fields it covers. That makes the GGN the anchor of your entire record-keeping: everything you record ultimately belongs to a production unit under that number.
The requirements themselves cover food safety, the environment, working conditions and traceability, and they rely heavily on record-keeping: which crop protection product was applied, when, on which field, at what dose, by whom, and with what waiting period before harvest. That data is created outdoors, often on a tractor or in a greenhouse, and in practice it is written down on paper and typed up later. That is where the gaps arise that surface during the audit.
If your harvest goes to animal feed, you fall under a different scheme structure. What that requires is set out on the page about VLOG and GMP+ software.
How we build your GlobalG.A.P. software
We start with recording in the field. If that is short and complete, the audit file follows from it; the reverse does not work.
Fields, greenhouses, sections and the crops growing on them, with the growing cycles and the GGN they fall under. This structure is the foundation: every record hangs off it and every traceability query starts from it.
We work through the checklist for your edition and determine, for each requirement, which record provides the evidence. This makes visible what must be logged daily and, just as usefully, what you already keep track of without anyone asking for it.
We work in sprints and start with crop protection records, where the volume and audit risk lie. Your crop manager takes part and uses an early version during a real spraying operation.
For the handover, we review the file against the questions an auditor would ask: show the applications on this field this season, with waiting periods and the sprayer's competence. Anything that cannot be shown in two clicks, we adjust.
What the software actually does
Six components that together form the record-keeping. What you need depends on your crops and on whether you only produce or also trade.
Recording per production unit
Field, greenhouse or section as a fixed unit, with the crop and growing cycle attached. All operations are linked to it, so a traceability query about a batch can be traced back to where it came from.
Crop protection with waiting periods
Product, dose, date, field and operator, with the pre-harvest waiting period, which the system monitors itself. A harvest within the waiting period is blocked or flagged; this is precisely the error that causes the most damage during an audit or residue check.
Competences and product register
Which employee may spray, and until when their certificate is valid, and which products are approved for your crop. Only someone who is qualified can record an application, and only with a product that is permitted on that crop.
Traceability to batch level
From harvest to batch to delivery, with the production unit and the records linked to it. When a question comes from your buyer, the answer is a search rather than a reconstruction.
Requirements with their evidence
For each requirement in your edition, we record which register or document demonstrates compliance and whether that evidence is still current. That is the list the auditor works through.
Audit mode and non-conformities
A view organised according to the checklist of your edition, alongside the route for findings: record, correct, verify and close within the deadline the scheme sets.
Who we build for
Four situations where this applies. The difference lies mainly in scale and in whether you certify only for yourself or also for affiliated growers.
Protected horticulture and open-field vegetables
The core. Records are made in the greenhouse or in the field, often by changing staff. If this connects to your farm software, plots and batches do not need to be entered twice.
Grower associations and trading houses
You certify on behalf of a group of affiliated growers and are responsible for their files. In that case, the focus is a portal in which each grower submits their own records.
Processing and packing
Alongside the growing side there is often a food safety scheme. If you also work under IFS or BRCGS, the overlap is considerable; see the IFS and BRCGS audit file.
Companies with multiple certificates
GlobalG.A.P. alongside an organic certification, a sustainability scheme or a customer-specific module. The gain here lies in recording evidence once for multiple requirements that depend on it.
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Explore OneDayBuild →Technology and integrations
What we deploy follows from your cultivation. In a field or a greenhouse there is seldom coverage, and people work in gloves, so offline use and large touch targets are design requirements. An app that does not work there ends up being filled in from memory at the end of the day.
For arable farmers with VVAK certification, there is our software for VVAK field registration.
If you want advice to run through to the spray order and keep approvals current, look at our spray registration and crop protection software.
If you need to trace fruit from the crate in the orchard through to delivery to the buyer, there is our app for fruit origin registration.
For arable businesses that want to record cultivation per field from sowing to harvest, there is our field registration software for arable farming.
For bulb businesses that want to track origin, size and inspections per batch, there is our app for bulb batch administration.
If you are only concerned with spray registration, an app for spray registration is sufficient.
Why Appfront
Recording the work where it happens
Every step between action and record is a point where something gets lost. We build so that logging a spray application on the tractor is quicker than writing it on a slip of paper.
Pre-harvest interval is a block, not a note
The most expensive mistake in this file is harvesting within the pre-harvest interval. We build that monitoring as something that intervenes, rather than as a warning in a report afterwards.
One field, not three administrations
Your business software, your crop planning and this file all know the same fields. We retrieve them via integrations rather than having them re-entered.
Honest about our role
We are not a certification body, nor are we an agronomic adviser. We build the system in which your records are created and become verifiable; the professional judgement remains with you and your adviser.
Security and privacy
A crop file contains personal data about your staff: who applied sprays, who harvested, and what evidence of competence exists. With seasonal labour, the data involved can be sensitive, such as nationality or accommodation, because the standard also sets requirements for working conditions. We only record what a requirement actually asks for, and we keep access tightly restricted accordingly.
From a business standpoint, the fact that this file contains your cultivation data weighs even more heavily: pesticide use, yields per plot, and the buyers you supply. That is information you do not want a competitor to have, nor an unfiltered buyer. If you are certifying on behalf of a group of growers, each grower sees only their own file in the portal. A recorded entry cannot be changed silently: a correction is shown as a correction and does not overwrite the original, because a crop record that can be altered after the fact is worthless in an audit or a residue query. Our approach to security is set out in our information security policy; reports from outside go through our vulnerability disclosure policy.
Frequently asked questions about GlobalG.A.P.
They are two editions of the same version 6 of the standard. The Smart edition has been mandatory since 1 January 2024 and is the usual route for growers. The GFS edition was recognised within the Global Food Safety Initiative in August 2024 and is needed when your buyer explicitly requires a GFSI-recognised standard. Which one you need is determined by your buyer; the records underneath largely overlap, so we set up the file around the more demanding of the two you hold.
The GlobalG.A.P. number is a unique thirteen-digit number assigned to every registered producer. Your buyers use it to check whether your certificate is valid and what it covers. In your administration it is the anchor point: production units, batches and deliveries all ultimately hang under it. We therefore build the file around that structure rather than around isolated inspection moments.
That is the costliest error in this file. Residue can remain on the product, resulting in rejection by your buyer, a product recall, or suspension of your certificate. That is why we build waiting-period monitoring as a block rather than an alert: the system knows the waiting period for each application and blocks any harvest record that falls within it, with the reason shown.
Yes, and that is a requirement here. Fields lie outside coverage areas, and signal inside a greenhouse is often poor. The app stores data locally and synchronises as soon as there is a connection, with a clear view of which records are still outstanding. We also design for use with work gloves and legibility in bright light; that sounds minor, but it determines whether the app actually gets used.
Yes, and that is a substantially different setup. In group certification you are responsible for the internal quality system and for the files of the member growers. The centre of gravity is then a portal in which each grower submits their own records, with an overview above it showing which grower is falling behind or which finding is still open. We build that as a separate layer.
GlobalG.A.P. covers cultivation through to harvest; IFS and BRCGS cover processing and packaging. If you do both, the requirements around traceability, hygiene and non-conformity management overlap considerably. We then link a piece of evidence to every requirement it meets, rather than duplicating it; see also the IFS and BRCGS audit file.
Usually, yes, and it is worth doing because fields, crops and batches are often already recorded there. We retrieve them rather than having them re-entered, because two administrations of the same fields are guaranteed to drift apart. What is possible depends on what interface your package offers; we establish that in the discovery phase before committing to it.
That depends on the number of production units, whether group certification is involved and which integrations you want. The crop protection register with withdrawal-period monitoring is usually the quickest to become useful and delivers the most value. The grower portal for group certification is the most work. We give a reasoned estimate after the discovery phase, not before.
Get a GlobalG.A.P. file built?
Tell us which edition you're running and where the last audit got stuck, and we'll help you think through plot-level registration, waiting-time monitoring and traceability through to your buyer. We build this as a standalone application or as part of a wider custom software or app project. Your plot data also feeds the Combined Declaration; see the RVO integration.