Farms are the first link in many supply chains that bring food to the kitchen table and the new International Standardization Organization technical specification, ISO/TS 22002-3:2011, has been developed to ensure that farmers implement best practice in maintaining a hygienic environment and play their part in controlling food safety hazards in food chains.
Food safety
- TC 34/SC 17 – Management systems for food safety
- ISO/TS 22002-3:2011
Prerequisite programmes on food safety – Part 3: Farming
- ISO 22000:2005
Food safety management systems – Requirements for any organisation in the food chain
ISO/TS 22002-3 is one of a series of support documents in the ISO 22000 series providing requirements for food safety prerequisite programmes (PRPs).
PRPs address the basic conditions and activities that are necessary for ensuring hygiene throughout the food chain during production, handling and provision of food safe for human consumption. ISO/TS 22002-3 specifies the requirements and guidelines for design, implementation and documentation of PRPs for farming.
“The chain from farm to fork may be a long one, even global in scale, involving many different participants,” says Dominique Berget, leader of the ISO team that developed the new document.
“Therefore, it’s important to ensure food safety right from the very first link, which is often the farm. ISO/TS 22002-3 provides state-of-art requirements and guidance for getting this right.”
It will be useful for all organisations, including individual farms or groups of farms, regardless of size or complexity, which are involved in the farming step of the food chain and wish to implement PRPs in accordance with ISO 22000:2005, the standard that gives the basic requirements for food safety management.
It is applicable to the farming of crops such as cereals, fruits, vegetables – living farm animals such as cattle, poultry, pigs, fish – and the handling of their products, for example milk and eggs.
All operations related to farming are included in the scope. This includes sorting, cleaning, packing of unprocessed products, on-farm feed manufacturing and transport within the farm.
The document includes specific examples of PRPs, although these are for guidance only since farming operations are diverse in nature according to size, type of products, production methods, geographical and biological environment, related statutory and regulatory requirements etc. Therefore, the need, intensity and nature of PRPs will differ between organisations.
Prerequisite programmes on food safety – Part 3: Farming, was developed by ISO technical committee ISO/TC 34.
It can be obtained from the ISO Central Secretariat, for 108 Swiss Francs, through the ISO store.
Visit: www.iso.org
