Reconciling Safety and Fairness in Global Agri-Food Standardization

Abstract

<p align="justify"> <span style="font-family:Verdana;">Private food safety standards have recently emerged as a dynamic power in the global value chan. Good agricultural practices (GAP) is one such standard currently gaining popularity as a prominent field-level food quality assurance system. Achieving private GAP certification, most notably of GlobalGAP, is a dif ficult option for low income producers in the Global South due to the high costs required for necessary investments and certification. This paper critically analyzes the ethical implications of private food safety standards in light of three theoretical perspectives from environmental sociology: ecological moderniza tion, risk society, and eco-socialism. It then examines the potential of public GAP schemes currently emerging in the Global South for reconciling safety and fairness in global agri-food standardization. It is suggested that the expansion of producer participation in public GAP program be regulated by gradual improvements in the state capacity of resource mobilization for auditing and extension institutions.</span> </p

What Food is to be Kept Safe and for Whom? Food-Safety Governance in an Unsafe Food System

“…Food has symbolic, cultural and physiological importance. Food-safety governance shapes moral and material economies and is a key site for establishing the legitimacy of governance, public and private [62,63]. Food governance can strengthen or weaken democracy.…”

“…It has become the basis of many national programs. In 2010, there were 102,586 GlobalGAP certified growers in 108 countries, and 122 independent accredited certification bodies worldwide [63]. Depending on how one looks at it, one can see that these food-safety programs allow retailers to be sure food is safe and allow local producers and exporters to access lucrative global markets.…”

“…They are also characterized by a more decentralized state and more flexible and consensual styles of governance and a bigger role for the private sector [71]. 9 The affinities between ecological modernization, the governance technologies of neo-liberalism and food-safety programs like GlobalGAP and other HACCP programs are pronounced [63,[70][71][72]. 10 This helps explain why even public safety-standards tend to mirror private ones.…”

“…For Lang and Lang and Rayner [3,76], the concept of ecological public health expresses the profound interdependence of human health and the environment that should be embodied in public health policy. This, I argue below, will require an epistemic transformation, a greater democratization of food governance [63] and an extension of the political boundaries of responsibility for justice [77].…”

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“…There is a growing body of research on national public GAP standards (e.g., Amekawa, 2013aAmekawa, , 2013bAmekawa, , 2010Banzon et al, 2013aBanzon et al, , 2013bIslam et al, 2012;Mankeb et al, 2014;Nicetic et al, 2010;Pongvinyoo and Yamao, 2014;Pongvinyoo et al, 2015Pongvinyoo et al, , 2014Schreinemachers et al, 2012;Srisopaporn et al, 2015). A critical question regarding the implementation of national public GAP standards is whether they are meeting the original goal of food safety and quality assurance through engaging small-scale farmers in the GAP compliance.…”