The Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) is not only locally focused, building on trust, social connections and knowledge exchange, but also encouraging or even require direct participation of farmers and consumers in the certification process. This helps reduce the load of complex paper-based tasks – streamlining operational processes for businesses. In addition, the application of the PGS system helps agribusinesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises to build trust with customers, increase sales revenue and be a tool to help businesses achieve standards. different.
No matter who you are, as a manufacturer, a carrier, or a consumer of food, you will be an essential element of the PGS system in the following ways:
1. Individual farmer household:
You can sign up to join a production team by contacting the production team leader in your area:
Your main roles and duties in the system include:
- Learn the principles and methods of farming that follow the standards of the production team.
- Active participation in activities including group meetings, training activities, inspections, etc.
- Update the farm management plan on a regular basis.
- Make commitments and strictly complying.
- Provide products and ensure production quality
- Encourage and assist other farmers to join PGS.
2. Team leader or member of production group:
The production group should meet the requirement of at least 5 farmer households in the same area.
The main roles and responsibilities of the production team in the system include:
- Meet the support activities for members (for example, in production or book management)
- Collect members’ commitments and ensure that members understand PGS standards.
- Plan group production and propagate the group’s products.
- Conduct periodic cross-checking (inspection by inspectors) for all group members.
- Promote team members to achieve the goals and objectives of the group.
- Ensure fairness and avoid conflicts of interest among members.
3. Distributor or consumer:
You can join the system by responding to product quality through traceability stamps. Or you can choose to directly participate in the intergroup, which is the leader of the production team and external members such as consumers, traders, local officials, employees of non-governmental organizations , …
The main roles and tasks of the inter-group in the PGS system include:
- Coordinate the process of completing the farm management plan and farmer’s pledge, ensuring that members understand the PGS standards.
- Keep the system of data and update every year on members’ production activities.
- Coordinate, check books, review documents of cross-checking process of each production group
- There are moves when there is fraud or mistake.
- Coordinate the production plan for all intergroup groups and promote intergroup products.
- Promote inter-group members to achieve inter-group goals and goals
- Ensure there are no conflicts of interest between members.
- Annually report to the PGS coordination group in accordance with the regulations.
4. How is the PGS system structured?
The PGS system has a simple structure with 4 main “units” of farmer households, production groups, inter-groups and PGS coordination committee. The PGS Coordination Committee is composed of full-time officials, consultants, supervisors, executives and managers of major activities in the system.
Main roles and duties of PGS coordination committee:
- Protect the rights of the Inter-groups, farmers in the system
- Approve the guidance of input materials in production for use in inspection and punishment.
- Maintain and update PGS standards as well as related legal documents
- Receive applications from new production groups and assign them to the appropriate Inter-Group.
- Support production groups and Intergroups to improve procedures and systems.
- Quality certification, communication and promotion
With a streamlined structure and cross-checking involvement of many stakeholders in the quality assurance process, operating with a trust base, the PGS system helps improve the autonomy and responsibility of producers. . They need to manage themselves, be honest throughout the process as well as respect the nature and health of consumers.
Stay tuned for the EFD project to better understand the PGS system as well as how to apply it.
References:
1. Technical documentation on PGS systems to participate in quality assurance by Rikolto / VECO in Vietnam and PGS Coordinating Committee of Vietnam.
2. PGS – Vietnam brochure of IFOAM
3. PGS – Operation manual for producers, ADDA and Vietnam Farmers Association, 2009
