FAO undertook district-level training of officers on sustainable agrifood systems from September 12 to 23, 2023. The training was conducted in three rounds and saw the participation of 130 officers and 260 farmers in total, in the six agroclimatic zones of Andhra Pradesh (North coastal zone, High altitude Zone, Godavari zone, Krishna zone, Southern zone and Scarce rainfall zone). The duration of each training round was four days.

The trainings were organised by the Andhra Pradesh State Seed Certification Authority (APSSCA), which is the nodal agency for implementing these trainings, facilitated by FAO. The trainings saw multi-stakeholder participation by the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) and Quality Council of India (QCI) as well.

The participants’ knowledge was enhanced on: Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) certification, GAP implementation strategy and group certification, guidelines and IND GAP checklist, a voluntary certification scheme by QCI, GAP/organic certification standards, horticulture crops – research findings and recommendations, and post-harvest handling (crop-wise curriculum for agricultural and horticulture crops).