The new Farm Standard

Purpose

With the alignment of ASC’s species standards into one ASC Farm Standard comes an opportunity to further develop and strengthen ASC’s human rights requirements, in consultation with a broad range of stakeholders. 

The ASC Farm Standard includes criteria on: 

• Human rights awareness 
• The prevention of forced labour and child labour 
• Discrimination 
• Health and safety 
• Collective bargaining and freedom of association 
• Contract transparency 
• Wages 
• Working hours 
• Workplace conduct response 
• Employee accommodation 
• Grievance mechanisms and community engagement

Public consultation

Principle 3 of the Farm Standard is the principle that focuses on social responsibility. It has had three rounds of public consultation, beginning with initial draft indicators in 2016, and again in 2019 and 2022. Feedback has been received from a range of stakeholders, including NGOs, producers, auditors, and retailers and this has been incorporated into the next version of the standard with the final version being released for public consultation in March 2024. 

Contact person: Clare Stevens

Resources