REQUIREMENTS FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF HACCP IN SPICE HACCP Principles can be applied through out the entire food chain. Significant adjustments will be necessary to accommodate the needs of each segment. More research is needed to establish the ecology related aspects so that appropriate intervention strategies such as avoiding fertilizing containing viable pathogenic organisms, maintaining accurate pesticide/herbicide spray records, and using integrated pest control management to minimize application of harmful chemicals etc. The burden of record keeping should be simplified. Education and training program should be relied upon to beginning with. This is applicable in the farm level as well as transportation, storage and handling also. Industry Association, Regulatory Agencies, Research Institutes and Importer's Association jointly should evolve generic guidelines and model HACCP plans for specific industries or group of industries, wherever possible which will serve as a base line for development and harmonization of HACCP principles. Regulatory agencies, and Govt. should build up the basic infrastructure for the industry atlas with regard to public health aspects and also training facilities. The HACCP systems should be harmonized internationally based on acceptable scientific risk assessment and risk management principles if agreement arising out of the final act of Uruguay Round on the GATT regarding agreement on the application of sanitary and phytosanitary measures and agreement on Technical Barriers to trade is to be smoothly applied. It should be noted that HACCP is not solution for negligence, fraud or malicious tampering. INTEGRATED QULITY ASSURANCE : HACCP AND ISO 9000 SERIES ISO 9000 Quality Management and Quality Assurance Standards are a series of International Standards that establish the generic requirements for quality systems meant for all product grounds and services. In order to implement those quality systems it is necessary to plan and implement the relevant requirements, and provide necessary resources and skills. Strong commitment of the management is the basic necessity. ISO 9000 standards by themselves do not specify product requirement. This is provided by alternative sources. In the case of food products food safety and other health requirements are provided by legislative support as regulatory requirements and consumer requirements. There is an ever increasing emphasis on quality assurance systems in food industry. This is achieved mainly by ISO 9000 standards and HACCP. ISO 9000 standards as stated above provides a frame work for the establishment and internal audit and external audit ensures maintenance and demonstration of the quality management systems. HACCP has been integrated into the regulatory mechanism by many countries, with clear focus on safety and wholesomeness of the food. For food items safety and wholesomeness is a factor which cannot be left to arbitration even by consumer/buyer and therefore under any system this factor should be considered as a mandatory requirement. Both nit he ISO 9000 and HACCP systems, the principles are very similar as well as so flexible and suited to serve as complimentary. The emphasis on both the systems is on prevention of non-conformance of the product. ISO 9000 quality assurance system has a wider scope where as in HACCP, the scope is mainly focussed on food safety and wholesomeness. In order to understand the compatibility of both the systems a comparison of the elements of both the quality systems are furnished. ISO 9001 quality assurance model has been used here as this standard is the most comprehensive among the series and all the elements are applicable. Source:-P.Bhaskaran Nair,Export Inspection Agency, Cochin-11.