La adopción de estándares en el sector hortícola de Baja California

Abstract

Baja California es una entidad en donde el sector hortofrutícola destaca por su orientación al mercado de exportación. Sin embargo, en los últimos años, algunos productos han sido asociados a brotes epidemiológicos por el consumo de frutas y hortalizas frescas en el mercado estodounidense, su principal destino, afectando fuertemente su competitividad y posicionamiento y conduciendo a los productores al uso de estándares como un medio para mantenerse en el mercado internacional e incrementar su participación. En este documento se examina el papel de la adopción de estándares en las empresas hortofrutícolas como parte de una estrategia competitiva que requiere a su vez un cambio tecnológico para alcanzar el objetivo de la certificación. Para tal efecto, se desarrolla un análisis basado en estadísticos descriptivos y consecuentemente se procede a realizar un análisis discriminante con el objetivo de explicar los factores que permiten diferenciar dos grupos de empresas: las que emprenden el cambio tecnológico como factor de competitividad y aquellas que no.

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

“…To date Mexican certification programs have been updated and comply with most international standards; nevertheless, food safety standards are not required across all domestic food chain markets, and are especially scarce or inexistent in those serving lower-income consumers. Some authors emphasize the need to re-focus on health certifications, and the adoption of food safety standards for domestic consumers, no matter their income or social level [30,31].…”

“…In order to compete with imported food products, the agricultural sector turned its production to fruits and vegetables that were more profitable and reduced the local food production of basic staples such as corn and beans. These choices led to many of the rural areas becoming the poorest nationally [18,19] and the majority of food vulnerability is now concentrated there (36.5%) compared to 22.9% in urban zones [30]. This led to the current structures of the 5.3 million REUs arising from differences in the access to markets, hectares (ha) owned, assets value, access to credit, and annual cash income (Table 1) [7,21,41].…”

“…Costs to become certified can be prohibitive to a small entrepreneur, producer, or middleman [62]. Avendaño and Varela [30] and Avendaño et al [63] found that the certification process increased the total costs by 2 to 10% for big exporters of fresh vegetable in Northwestern Mexico. These authors estimated that producers faced a total of $15,000 USD in production costs during the six to 12 months needed to undergo the full certification process.…”

“…Additionally, in the early stages, certification requires investment in infrastructure and technology. Profits decreased and some producers became disappointed which may have led them to drop the certification process, and they are therefore experiencing barriers of entrance to medium-and high-income domestic markets [30,65].…”

Beyond Food Security: Challenges in Food Safety Policies Based on International Certifications along a Heterogeneous Food Chain. Its Effects in Mexican´s Health and Poverty

“…To date Mexican certification programs have been updated and comply with most international standards; nevertheless, food safety standards are not required across all domestic food chain markets, especially are scarce or inexistent in those attending low income consumers. Some authors emphasize the need of re-focus certification in health, and the adoption of food safety standards for domestic consumers, no matter their income or social level [14,15].…”