Explaining development strategies of GAP standard with emphasis on GroupGAP in rice production system

Application private GAP standard for safety product certification due to costs is out of reach in many small and medium-sized farms among smallholder farmers. GroupGAP has provided a much-anticipated alternative where operators and farmers' cooperatives can pay the cost of certification on a cost-sharing basis. The purpose of this research was to explain the development strategies of GAP standard with emphasis on GroupGAP in the rice production system of Mazandaran province. Research is qualitative and data analysis was conducted in the grounded theory method, during a three-stage process of open coding, central coding, and selective coding. The data collection tool included an in-depth and semi-structured interview with a qualitative content analysis technique, which was analyzed through Maxquda software. The statistical population of the research was 18 experts of the Agricultural Jihad Organization and managers of the Rice Farmers Cooperative Company of Mazandaran Province, who were selected by the purposeful sampling method. After extracting the concepts of the content analysis of the interviews, 9 conceptual codes out of 30 initial codes were identified in the first stage of coding. After refining and merging, the codes were classified into 3 subcategories: group certification system, the development of publicGAP programs and the development of private GAP. Due to the importance of the GAP standard issue and farmers' problems in providing the audit fees and establishment of GAP certificate. Therefore, research is an attempt to provide a useful framework in explaining GAP standard strategies in adopting the government, private, group and cooperative certification system.