Water Testing for GAP Requirements

Date: 5 Feb 2020
Author: Hill Laboratories

Good Agricultural Practice, commonly referred to as GAP, is a “collection of principles to apply for on-farm production and post-production processes, resulting in safe and healthy food and non-food agricultural products, while taking into account economic, social and environmental sustainability.” To assist you in complying with NZGAP requirements, Hill Laboratories offers a dedicated kit and testing profile for NZGAP water testing.

NZGAP provides a number of certification options for New Zealand producers to meet the requirements of customers around the world using the GLOBAL G.A.P standards.

To meet the requirements of GAP standards, water used for production and harvesting must be evaluated and tested for E. Coli at least once annually. The result for E. Coli must be less than (<) 1000 cfu/100mL for irrigation or spray water, and less than (<) 100 cfu/100mL for any water used within 48 hours of harvest. There are no restrictions on water containing <1 cfu/100mL E. Coli.

Our dedicated kit and testing profile for NZGAP water testing will assist you in complying with NZGAP requirements. The NZGAP Microbiological Water Kit has everything you need to sample your self-supply water and return these samples to us for testing. This kit can be easily ordered from our website here.

Please note that we must receive the samples at the lab within 20hrs of sampling and <10°C to process the sample for Faecal Coliforms and E Coli. There are instructions in the kit regarding the best way to achieve this.

For more information on NZ GAP requirements visit the NZGAP website.