The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) jointly decided to mount a nationwide campaign to support agricultural high schools in getting international food certification of the Good Agricultural Practice (GAP).
All of 306 agricultural high schools in Japan will be guided to aim at receiving the GAP certification in fiscal 2017.
Foodstuffs that are to be used in meals served at athletes’ village of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics Games will be required to get GAP certified. And a number of people concerned with agriculture and food supplies have been growing their interests in the GAP system.
MAFF and MEXT plan to set a target of making all the agricultural high schools obtain a Global GAP Certificate or a Japanese GAP Certificate.
With a view to achieving the target, MEXT will launch the nationwide campaign by providing teachers of agricultural high schools and school board members at its meetings not only with information on significance of GAP, but also with technical advices on how to get the GAP certification.
MEXT is considering the possibility of inviting farm advisors of agricultural cooperatives and agricultural extension workers who are fully knowledgeable about the GAP system as resource persons at these meetings.
Payments of financial subsidies to agricultural high schools will be also considered by the government in order to reduce their burden of costs such as specialists’ consultancy and inspection fees that occur for receiving the GAP certification.