QUALITY ASSURANCE IN CERTIFICATION PROCESSES AND THE COLOMBIAN AGRICULTURAL SECTOR: KINDNESS AND CHALLENGES

Ensuring quality, safety, environmental preservation and management in food production processes is responsibility of both agricultural and husbandry food industries. These factors guarantee safety of human health and represent the starting point to establish requirements for production and food marketing, encouraging development of alternative production models including social, economic and environmental components. In order to effectively fulfill consumer's requirements, activities to allow regulation of production, processing and distribution processes, through the implementation of Quality Management System (QMS) should be implemented, as a requirement to access to certification processes. The purpose of this review is to present the general aspects of QMS and its incidence on the Colombian agricultural industry, components, standards and certification process, focusing on the advantages, limitations and challenges.