Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2012

Abstract

The challenge of globalizing markets is nowhere greater than in the primary food sector. GLOBALGAP (formerly known as EUREPGAP) has established itself as a key reference for Good Agricultural Practices (G.A.P.) in the global market place, by translating consumer requirements into agricultural production in a rapidly growing list of countries – currently more than 100 on every continent.

Egypt’s trade profile is characterized by huge trade deficits. One of the methods for decreasing the deficit is through increasing exports. Exports of Egyptian agriculture goods increased but not to the extent to play an important role in decreasing the deficit. The challenge for Egypt is to maintain and expand agricultural production for domestic and export markets while at the same time adding value and employment through the development of more agriculture-based processing activities. For the 70 percent of the world’s poor who live in rural areas, agriculture is the main source of income and employment. But depletion and degradation of land and water pose serious challenges to producing enough food and other agricultural products to sustain livelihoods here and meet the needs of urban populations. The agriculture land is 38% of the total land area in Egypt (World Bank statistics,2007) Egypt could take an opportunity by increasing export of fresh vegetables and fruits but the environment is highly complex and dynamic facing future challenges reflected in the GLOBAL-GAP ; it is compulsory that any exporter from any country to be certified by the GLOBAL-GAP. Today organizations have to deal with high and increasing levels of internal and external complexity that challenge traditional models of management and control; to be competitive they must be able to reach high degrees of reactivity, flexibility and adaptively. The question of the viability of the system must be examined and dealing with complexity and dynamism needs new methodologies. This paper used the Viable System Model as a Cybernetic audit tool; the viable system model is used to diagnose the Egyptian producers, and detect the difficulties to make specific recommendations for improving performance of producers to enable them to be viable which means the ability to survive and capability of responding to environmental changes; GLOBAL-GAP major check points.

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