Standards and Agro-Food Exports from Developing Countries: Rebalancing the Debate
300 citations recorded by the source corpus.
The proliferation and increased stringency of food safety and agricultural health standards is a source of concern among many developing countries. These standards are perceived as a barrier to the continued success of their exports of high-value agro-food products (including fish, horticultural, and other products), either because these countries lack the technical and administrative capacities needed for compliance or because these standards can be applied in a discriminatory or protectionist manner. The authors draw on available literature and work in progress to examine the underlying evidence related to the changing standards environment and its impact on existing and potential developing country exporters of high-value agricultural and food products. The evidence the authors present, while only partial, suggests that the picture for developing countries as a whole is not necessarily problematic and certainly less pessimistic than the mainstream"standards-as-barriers"perspective. Indeed, rising standards serve to accentuate underlying supply chain strengths and weaknesses and thus impact differently on the competitive position of individual countries and distinct market participants. Some countries and industries are even using high quality and safety standards to successfully (re-)position themselves in competitive global markets. This emphasizes the importance of considering the effects of food safety and agricultural health measures within the context of wider capacity constraints and underlying supply chain trends and drivers. The key question for developing countries is how to exploit their strengths and overcome their weaknesses such that they are gainers rather than losers in the emerging commercial and regulatory context.
Subfields: Food Science, Plant Science, Strategy and Management
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e0b2cc4ce128d3092b2554ce3c7a35510a738c60
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Citations in the corpus
- Standards as Barriers Versus Standards as Catalysts: Assessing the Impact of HACCP Implementation on U.S. Seafood Imports (2009, unknown): “For example, Jaffee and Henson (2004) and the World Bank (2005) argue that standards can act to impede trade flows by explicit bans but more probably through prohibitive costs of compliance, particularly for poorer countries.”
- Globalization and Poverty in Senegal: A Worst Case Scenario? (2011, background): “…standards are applied to the competitive advantage of developing countries, resulting in upgrading of the food sector and enhanced market access (Jaffee and Henson, 2004 & 2005; Henson and Jaffee, 2008; Maertens and 3 One of the most publicized aspects of these investments is the so-called…”
- What Impact Are EU Supermarket Standards Having on Developing Countries' Export of High-Value Horticultural Products? Evidence From Kenya (2010, background): “An alternative and less pessimistic view emphasizes that compliance with food safety standards can be a catalyst for upgrading and modernization of developing a country’s food supply systems (Jaffee & Henson, 2004; Maertens & Swinnen, 2006).”
- The Effect of Product Standards on Agricultural Exports (2013, unknown): “Jaffe and Henson (2004) suggest that compliance with food safety and agricultural health standards may well provide a powerful incentive for the modernization of developing country export supply chains and give greater clarity to the necessary and appropriate management functions of government.”