I think that as private standards become increasingly pervasive means of regulating the global food system, we'll be seeing development funds increasingly devoted to subsidizing the training and certification programs that enable export-oriented farmers in the Global South to access these markets.

There's a story in the Middle East Times about one such scheme funded by the Dutch government to train some of the 800 farmers in the Gaza Strip in the Eurepgap protocols (100% Dutch supermarkets sell 100% EurepGAP-certified produce). The program is run by Israel/Palestinian Center for Research and Information (IPCRI).

Sadly, one of the 40 farmers in the first graduating class was killed last Sunday, May 7, as he tended to his watermelon crop, by an Israeli shell supposedly aimed at militants who fire homemade rockets from Gaza into Israel. It makes me wonder a couple things: 1) if growing food under military occupation and state-sponsored terror can be considered "Good Agriculture Practice", with all the extra market value for European consumers.

2) There are a number of Israeli NGOs who use "partnerships" with Palestinian civil society as their cash cow for grants, and a number of Palestinian groups that are very pissed about this. I don't think that the Israel/Palestinian Center for Research and Information (IPCRI) is one of them, but my guess is that Coopted NGOs (CoNGOs) will be increasingly mobilized, by their government aid agency funders, to facilitate the rise of these private governance schemes.

Here's an article by Amira Hass in Ha'aretz about the ongoing shelling, and the fear of farmers to go into the fields, and a story from the BBC about the inability for Gaza farmers to get vegetables through checkpints, with or without EurepGAP certification.