To spray or not to spray: pesticides, banana exports, and food safety

By John S. Wilson, T. Otsuki. 2004

249 citations recorded by the source corpus.

How governments regulate food safety and environmental protection, including pesticide residue levels, has important implications for trade. The World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial held in Doha, Qatar in November 2001, included statements on standards, and their impact on market access for developing countries. These issues will continue to be important in trade policy dialogues. It is assumed - and evidence from recent analysis confirms - that food safety standards can affect the ability of agricultural producers to meet regulatory standards, set by importing countries. The authors explore a fundamental question in food safety and environmental standards: Do regulations on pesticide have an effect on trade? They examine regulatory data from 11 OECD importing countries, and trade data from 19 exporting countries. The results suggest that a 10 percent increase in regulatory stringency - tighter restrictions on the pesticide chlorpyrifos - leads to a decrease in banana imports by 14.8 percent. This represents a significant impact on trade, and affect prospects of developing countries who continue to rely on exports of agricultural commodities, such as bananas. The findings also suggest that the lack of consensus on international standards, and divergent national regulations on pesticides is costly. For example, the authors estimate that if the world were to adopt a standard at a level of regulatory stringency suggested by Codex (the body charged with setting global standards in this area), in contrast with one set at the level in place in the European Union, there would be a U$S 5.3 billion loss in world exports.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Food Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/745c1b9c756e16788064e3c3fae09bd3f27185dc

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Economics and Econometrics

1. M. Maertens
2. Jo Swinnen
3. John C. Beghin
4. F. Santeramo
5. E. Lamonaca
6. Yuan Li
7. P. Tipraqsa
8. David Zilberman

In Food Science

1. Jo Swinnen
2. M. Maertens
3. John C. Beghin
4. Yuan Li
5. F. Santeramo
6. E. Lamonaca

Citations in the corpus

• Protectionism Indices for Non-Tariff Measures: An Application to Maximum Residue Levels (2014, methodology): “Marette (2010); Wilson and Otsuki (2004)).”
• North-South Standards Harmonization and International Trade (2013, unknown): “Although there is no theoretical argument establishing a cost hierarchy to standards, and regional standards are not necessarily costlier to implement that international ones, a number of papers (see e.g. Otsuki et al., 2001; Wilson and Otsuki, 2004) have shown empirically that international standar”
• Standards as Barriers Versus Standards as Catalysts: Assessing the Impact of HACCP Implementation on U.S. Seafood Imports (2009, unknown): “While Otsuki, Wilson, and Sewadeh (2001), Wilson and Otsuki (2004), and Blind and Jungmittag (2005) apply fixed-effects models, Egger and Pfaffermayr (2004) and Peridy, Guillotreau, and Bernard (2000), among others, doubt the appropriateness of such models in trade flow analysis.”
• Agricultural pesticides and land use intensification in high, middle and low income countries (2012, background): “prioritizing food production over food safety, only weakly regulate pesticide use (Ecobichon, 2001; Wilson and Otsuki, 2004).”
• Non-Tariff Measures and Standards in Trade and Global Value Chains (2015, background): “They can also exhibit reporting and selection biases as not all firms answer and those who do may be inclined to report strategically to facilitate exports (see Michalek et al. 2005; Wilson and Otsuki 2004b).”
• The Combination of Gravity and Welfare Approaches for Evaluating Nontariff Measures (2010, unknown): “Many recent empirical assessments of NTMs have been mercantilist focusing on forgone trade via gravity estimation (see for example Otsuki, Wilson, and Sewadeh 2001a and b; Wilson and Otsuki 2004; Disdier, Fontagné, and Mimouni 2008; Anders and Caswell 2009).”
• Pesticides Residues and Trade: the Apple of Discord? (2011, background): “Previous research has already addressed how food safety standards affect international trade (Henson and Mitullah, 2000; Otsuki and al., 2001a and 2001b; Wilson and Otsuki, 2003; Wilson and Otsuki, 2004; Moenius 2006).”
• Pest Management in Food Systems: An Economic Perspective (2012, background): “Such import standards have significant potential to reduce trade, particularly in fresh fruit and vegetables from developing countries (122, 123).”
• The Effects of Non‐tariff Measures on Agri‐food Trade: A Review and Meta‐analysis of Empirical Evidence (2018, background): “…understanding the trade effects of NTMs in agri-food sector is attested by the large and increasing number of papers hosted in top journals (e.g. Hooker and Caswell, 1999; Wilson and Otsuki, 2004; Dawson 2006; Sheldon, 2006; Olper and Raimondi, 2008; Cioffi et al., 2011; Beckman and Arita, 2016).”