Beyond Food Security: Challenges in Food Safety Policies and Governance along a Heterogeneous Agri-Food Chain and Its Effects on Health Measures and Sustainable Development in Mexico

Abstract

This work describes the relevance of food policies and governance to reach food safety issues along a heterogeneous food chain, in the context of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) food security definition. Using personal interviews with agents in the food chain, and secondary data from 2014–2018, this exploratory research demonstrated that: (a) Mexican food policies regarding food safety are oriented to the exports markets and/or high income producers-consumers; (b) this has split the agri-food chain in two: one serving international and/or high income consumers, and another serving domestic markets; (c) the agri-food chain that serves domestic markets experiences regulatory budget shortfalls, lacks coordination in food regulations across its agents, and brings about alternate informal markets that put peoples’ health and financial stability at risk, especially those lower-income consumers. Only 0.7% of producers, 12.5% of supermarkets and 42.8% of restaurants have some type of food safety certifications. This is worsened by the way public resources have been distributed, focused, prioritized, and planned. If the differences between big, medium and small producers continue to increase, it will increase regional and individual inequality, leading to two different countries: one developed and one developing, challenging its sustainable development.

Sustainability for Food Consumers: Which Perception?

“…Ensuring food security is becoming a challenge for institutions, but is also an increasingly realistic perspective for the consumer and human society [46]. The latter two definitions fell within the dimension of governance as a sustainability-supporting policy [47] and, together with the environmental dimension, prevail in the definition of the priorities of this cluster of consumers. It is interesting to underline that the SDGs Objective 12 (sustainable and responsible consumption) emphasizes the promotion of resource and energy efficiency, sustainable infrastructures, as well as guaranteeing access to basic services, decent work and respectful of the environment and a better quality of life for all.…”

An Integrative Conceptual Framework of Food Certifications: Systematic Review, Research Agenda, and Macromarketing Implications

“…The studies aim to evaluate the relevance of food safety and quality also related to food certifications. (Attrey 2017;Dimara et al 2004;Falcomer et al 2020;Kimura 2010;Long et al 2010;Mayett-Moreno and López Oglesby 2018;Suh 2015aSuh , 2015c final consumers to satisfy their information needs arising from personal, social, economic, and environmental sustainability and/or religious motivations. This generates an increase in consumers' trust in food products that allow informed and conscious food choices.…”

The Alignment between Agricultural Policy and the SDGs: Zero Hunger and Responsible Production and Consumption in Ecuador

“…At the same time, these policies must coordinate and provide support, resources, infrastructure, and supervision to all agents in the food chain to achieve the objectives of the entire system [11]. This law is linked with targets 2.3 and 2.5, which seek animal welfare, and with targets 2a and 2c, mainly to generate research, technological development, and agricultural extension that allow creating local capacities as Peasant Family Farming territorial systems.…”

“…However, from the side of private non-state actors, global agreements on agriculture and food often seek to consolidate favourable scenarios that undermine the right to food; social movements propose alternatives to generate changes in the models of production and consumption, prioritizing food sovereignty as a political proposal. This is the importance of addressing the issue of governance at the local and global level, considering the criteria of all those involved in agri-food systems, since the agricultural sector is based on the adoption of effective public and governance policies [11], that is to say, in the state action tending to accomplish cooperation between the actors to achieve common objectives [12] based on participation, such as the construction of the ordinance for the use of public space for the commercialization of healthy products in agroecological fairs in the municipality of Cayambe.…”