1.0 Introduction
Food safety refers to the science of handling, processing, storing and transporting food in such a manner to minimize chemical and pathogen contamination. The essence of this discipline is to protect man from food related health hazards. Food can be a culture for growth of pathogens and can very easily absorb and carry harmful chemicals used in production and processing. Thus, food has the ability to transmit disease causing microorganisms as well as hazardous chemicals. In addition to this continued use of genetically modified foods poses a health risk to the future generation and genetically degrades the environment. Despite the potency of this issue, it must be mentioned that food safety standards exist only in developed countries. While in developing ones, they are still concerned with the provision of clean adequate water. Increased liberalization of the agro-industrial market has consequently resulted into the worldwide integration of food supply chains (Elise, Krissoff and Kuchler 6).
2.0 Food Safety and International Trade
Business owners have little incentive or motivation to provide the market with safe food commodities mainly because they are more interested in profit making than consumer safety. This becomes more complicated by the fact that consumers have no means of determining the safety of the food and that many consumers do not relate certain illnesses to their health thus do not take healthy precautions. However lately the consumers have become more aware on the importance of food safety especially because there have been numerous studies associating health status with food. Many consumer protection and lobby groups have emerged out of the concern and need to protect the consumers from unsafe food practices and products. These consumer lobby groups have been at the forefront in advocating for safe practices and lobbying for legislations aimed at protecting consumers. As a result many countries have formulated and established laws to protect their citizenry from unsafe food products. This has forced many food producers to invest more in systems that guarantee food safety. The cost implications of implementing the safety measures are definitely passed on to the consumer. It is therefore obvious that food safety issues and concerns have a great impact on the economics of international trade. In addition to costs incurred in implementing the food safety measures some food producing firms have to reckon with high legal fees whenever they are sued by consumers who have suffered health complications due to consumption of the products of the firms. Other firma are forced by the resulting bad publicity to recall some of their products from the world market. A case in point is when some Chinese firms were recently forced to recall baby formula milk when it was discovered that the milk was laced with harmful chemicals. In addition firms can lose business when customers shun away from their products simply because complains of unsafe practices have been publicized. The trick however, is to communicate to the consumer the fact the costliness of food commodities is an attribute of the safety standards involved in production . I thought you were a nice person and wanted to remain in touch and friends with you, my yahoo mail is freshmwangi.
These issues affect international trade. This is mainly attributed to the differences in food safety regulations, different degrees of food risks tolerance, variations in costs of productions and different probabilities of chances of food contamination. For instance, if a country enforces strict food safety measures, its food industries will incur more costs in production in a bid to meet these measures. Hence, they will be unable to sell the commodities to the consumers at low costs. But due to trade agreements, foreign enterprises not subject to these measures would be in a position to sell the same commodity at lower prices. Eventually, the local firms are disadvantaged. This culminates into conflicts between countries as a result of differences in food safety measures (Roberts and Unnevehr 30). It is important to note that whenever a country enacts food safety measures, the cost of production must increase. In most cases, this enactment is thus resisted by food producers. This is so because the enactment of the regulations outlaws the previously cheaper unsafe commodities that had already been produced. In a bid to avoid losses, the firms try to offload the illegal merchandise. That coupled with ignorance of the consumers might prove problematic to the enactment of food safety standards.
A more common scenario that has sparked a lot of complains and trade disputes from the developing countries is when the importing countries impose very strigent safety measures for food produced in the developing countries wit out considering the capital investment and limitations. A case in mind is the conditions of the type of pesticides and other chemicals to be used, the principle of traceability, quality control etc. all of which have cost implications hence increase the cost of production. Failure to meet these requirements (often due to the high cost) locks the developed countries out of the rich markets in the developed world. On the other hand the developed countries give incentives to their producers so as to impliment the safetey measure thus lowering the cost of production. This therefore makes it difficult for the developing world to compete. Indeed this was on of the bone of contention that led to the collapse of the Doha round table discussions (Editorial ).
However, it must be mentioned that due to international trade, a country’s ability to restrict foreign firms is limited by the trade agreements between the two countries. The difference in policy implementation between local and foreign food producer is bound to create bad blood at some point. In most cases stringent food safety standards are imposed on imported foods so that eventually the cost of imported food is prohibitive. On the other hand the same standards are not required of local food producers thus there cost of production is lower. In fact there are claims that food safety measures imposed on foreign foods have been used as measures to protect the local producers. This is because the stringent regulations lock out the foreign producers because their cost of production is higher thus they can’t compete with the local producers. Some countries even ban certain food imports on the grounds of safety yet they allow the sale of the same products from the local producers. In other words some countries have introduced certain safety standards in disguise solely to safeguard the local industry. For instance Chile has banned the import of fresh poultry while domestic producers are allowed to sell fresh poultry. Measures such as this are prohibited by the World Trade Organization (WTO). Thus enactment might just attract sanctions and trade bans from the global regulatory body. This further complicates the enactment of food safety measures.
3.0 Trade conflicts emanating from food safety issues
Whenever food safety standards are concerned, there are four models of trade conflicts. The first one is the difference in the basis of food commodity standardization . One country might choose product standard as the basis for food safety regulations. On the other hand, another country might take the route process standards to back their safety measures. Despite the fact that the end result of both approaches might be similar, the differences in food safety requirements would force these same food commodities to be locked out of these two countries’ consumer markets. Instead, one country might adopt a different process of commodity production to their trading partners. The effects of the difference are the same regardless of the same product. For instance, the E.U. and the US have different mandatory standards for meat producers. The US stipulates adherence to Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) plans while the government reserves the right to inspect the final product. The E.U. also follows HACCP plans but strictly requires its meat producers to check for specific animal diseases and purchase casings from authorized vendors. The end result of these two varied processes is hygienic meat. But the E.U. has severally banned US certified meat. In addition to this, the US allows use of growth hormones in livestock production while the E.U. bans it.
Secondly, there are variations in safety standards between two different countries. This is exemplified by the disparities in the acceptance of various degrees risk and the willingness to accept responsibility for ingested unsafe food. Hence, one country might have pesticide residue or bacterial levels in food commodities that differ significantly from their trading partners. Also, countries may have divergences in perceptions of unknown food risks hence result to differences in food safety measures. A good example is the strict measures enacted by the E.U. to curb the incidents of aflatoxin in peanuts. This move effectively locks out African peanut exports from the trading bloc. This is so due to the fact that aflatoxin levels vary from country to country and trading bloc to trading bloc.
Third, the ease of compliance to food safety measures may vary significantly for both foreign and local firms. Some regulations will be met by foreign food producers at great difficulties as compared to the native food industries. For instance, if the inspection of the final food commodity is done by a local agency, it possesses numerous challenges for foreigners to comply. They will experience challenges in determining the standard of regulation, complying with the set standard and eventually getting personnel from the local agency to give them the nod. More so, the cost of compliance might be extremely costly hence making the achievement of the set standards difficult or impossible. The cost and logistics required for compliance might be restrictive in some countries. For example in developing countries, it is hard to come across the necessary technology and specialized personnel to help the foreign enterprises in compliance. Thus, this inflates the cost of compliance unnecessarily. Apart from the aforementioned reasons, it is possible for the exporting country to use agrochemicals that are banned in the importing country in food production. This is makes compliance difficult as most food production processes cannot be reversed (Golan, Elise, Krissoff, & Kuchler, Jan-Feb. 2002). Poorer countries might thus need to surmount a lot of challenges before complying with regulations imposed by their trading partners.
Finally, countries might agree in food trade compliance measures but one country might fail to comply. This may be due to accidental contamination or the discovery of a new safety problem. For instance, in 1998, dioxin accidentally contaminated livestock feed hence subsequently contaminating animal products in Belgium. The US consequently banned import of animal products from Belgium albeit temporarily. Another possible scenario is that certain unprecedented economic factors might make compliance of food safety regulations expensive or unreasonable. Such a case thus mandates temporary termination of trade in the particular commodity as the exporting country sorts out the underlying causal factors. However, conflicts might ensue if the importing and the exporting fail to agree on terms and conditions of trade resumption. If the standard of the safety of the food commodity is not agreed upon in advance, trade conflicts are inevitable.
4.0 Resolving Trade conflicts involving food safety
The solution of food safety related trade conflicts is necessary for the wanton loss of life to be minimized and for the economic implications to be averted. The Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) provision, a WTO mastermind, provided the platform for such disputes to be resolved. Of importance to the purposes of this paper are the principles of equivalence and harmonization. The equivalence requires countries to accept for trade partners to accept each other’s commodities as equivalent to each other’s food safety standards. This holds if an exporter can verify beyond reasonable doubt that their standards of food safety measures can meet the importer’s food safety regulations. Thus this provision advocates for flexibility and identifies the necessity to use scarce resources efficiently rather than similarly. This provides the framework necessary for bilateral and multilateral agreements to hold. The harmonization provision on the other hand propagates for identical food safety measures and standards amongst trading partners. In this case the trading partners are involved in the formulation of the safety measures and standards.
In conclusion food safety standards in different countries affect international trade because they tend to increase the cost of production. The different food safety standards in different countries and trading blocs provide a very rich medium for trade conflicts. The principles of harmonization and equivalence have been advocated for in the SPS provisions formulated by the WTO to resolve the food safety trade conflicts. Suffice to say that there is a need to balance between issues of public health and the concerns of economics of food safety.
Works Cited
European Communities. "Communication from the Commission on Foods and Food Ingredients Authorized for Treatment with Ionizing Radiation in the Community." Official Journal (2001).
BBC. China arrests 2,000 people in food safety crackdown. 4 August October. 31 October 2011
Editorial. "World trade: Iin the twilight of Doha." The Economist 27 July 2006 : 3.
Elise, Golan, Barry Krissoff and Fred Kuchler. "Traceability for Food Marketing and Food Safety: What’s the Next Step?” ." Agricultural Outlook Jan-Feb 2002: 3-6.
Golan, E, B Krissoff and F Kuchler. "Traceability for Food Marketing and Food Safety: What’s the Next Step?" Agricultural Outlook Jan. – Feb 2002: 21 – 25.
Institute of Food Technologists (IFT). IFT Expert Report on Emerging Microbiological Food Safety Issues: Implications for Control in the 21st Century. February 2002. 31 October 2011
Roberts, Donna and Laurian Unnevehr. Resolving Trade Disputes Arising from Trends in Food Safety Regulation:The Role of the Multilateral Governance Framework. nd. 31 October 2011
