Audits

With a growing awareness and mounting pressure for the agricultural sector to address the numerous environmental challenges facing our planet, the industry has embarked on a journey towards enhancing its environmental sustainability. In South Africa, producers, packhouses, and processing facilities now have the opportunity to gradually progress towards environmental sustainability by collaborating with SIZA once… Continue reading The SIZA Environmental Pillar of Sustainability: A Step-by-Step Journey

In various circumstances, auditors may find it necessary to document specific information during audits with a video or voice recording, which can subsequently be incorporated into the audit report.

While it is understandable that businesses are highly occupied and face various challenges during this time, it is essential for audits to be conducted when the site is at its peak production.

The completion of corrective actions following an audit holds immense importance as it serves as evidence that the site is actively implementing improvements.

Audit firms and auditors are core stakeholders of the SIZA programme and valuable partners in compliance for all parties involved in the audit process.

Findings should be raised per code requirement as contained in the SIZA Standard, and it should not include multiple findings under one requirement.

If a business operates multiple crops and commodities which fall into different harvest/peak production cycles, e.g., a winter commodity and a summer commodity, and the workforce differs, then the audit must occur during the highest peak production cycle, where the most workers are present.

Although there is not much legislation for housing within agriculture specifically in South Africa, the requirements and drive to best practice are driven and based on a combination of several Acts and Regulations across the South African legal framework.

One of the major focus points of a social audit is to give workers a voice and establish whether management is ensuring a safe working (and living, if applicable) environment for employees.

SIZA audits occur throughout the agricultural sector, and the programme represents 42 different commodities. These commodities include various fruit, vegetables, dairy, meat, flower, spices, wool and other agricultural commodities. This