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Challenges of Agro-Food Standards Conformity: Lessons from East Africa and Policy Implications

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Abstract

Standards are used to govern an increasing share of global food trade, and have been interpreted by academics both as market access barriers and opportunities for low-income country producers, exporters and workers. Donors have mostly chosen to treat them as opportunities and today finance a variety of programmes and projects aimed at supporting standards development and conformity. This article contributes to the critical literature discussing the challenges and potentials of standards conformity and supplies policy recommendations for future interventions. It reports the results of a research programme on standards conformity in East Africa. These demonstrate that most interventions underestimate the nature of the challenges faced and that significant impacts are achieved only under rather restricted conditions. The solutions lay not only in more selective support to standard development and better-informed interventions, but also to focus more squarely on supply capacity and welfare outcomes in project planning.

Abstract

Les normes sont utilisées pour régir une part croissante du commerce alimentaire mondial. Les experts les considèrent à la fois comme des obstacles aux marchés et des opportunités pour les producteurs, exportateurs et travailleurs des pays à faibles revenus. Les bailleurs de fonds ont pour la plupart choisi de les traiter comme des opportunités et financent aujourd’hui divers programmes et projets visant à soutenir le développement des normes et à en promouvoir la conformité. Cet article contribue à la littérature critique sur les défis et possibilités de la conformité aux normes et formule des recommandations politiques pour les interventions futures. Il présente les résultats d’un programme de recherche sur la conformité aux normes en Afrique de l’Est. Ces résultats montrent que la plupart des interventions sous-estiment la nature des difficultés à surmonter et que des effets significatifs ne sont obtenus que sous des conditions restrictives. Les solutions ne résident pas uniquement dans un soutien plus sélectif à l’élaboration de normes et dans des interventions mieux éclairées; elles impliquent également que l’on porte une attention plus soutenue, dans la planification de projets, sur la capacité d’approvisionnement et les résultats en matière de bien-être.

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Notes

  1. Such standards now seek to regulate trade in biofuels, forestry products, fish products, aquarium fish, horticultural products, coffee, cocoa, tea, palm oil, soy, sugarcane and cotton. For many crops, there are competing multi-stakeholder initiatives.

  2. With the partial exception of OECD country development agencies (see below).

  3. See Financial Times (2006) on Fairtrade coffee and Ouma (2010) in relation to GlobalGAP.

  4. According to Blackman and Rivera (2010), the equally small number of well-designed studies of environmental outcomes lean in the direction of showing no observable effects from certification.

  5. Programmes of this kind are supported by: the World Bank, IFAD and Andean Development Corporation among development banks; the Common Fund for Commodities and UNIDO among inter-governmental organizations; USAID, DFID, Danida, JICA, EVD and AUS-Aid among bilateral donors; and Solidaridad, Cordaid, Gatsby Charitable Foundation and Shell Foundation among international NGOs.

  6. This includes two surveys of the Esco Ltd. (U) organic cocoa and vanilla scheme with a 3-year interval.

  7. The main standards concerned are MPS-SQ (Milieu Project Sierteelt- Socially Qualified), FLP (German Flower Label), FFP (Fair Flowers and Plants), FLO (Fairtrade) and HEBI (Horticultural Ethical Business Initiative, Kenya). HEBI was supported by DFID.

  8. The aggregate EU market share for product certified to all standards in the sector is between 50 and 75 per cent.

  9. As the agency fee is unusual and contested, a transfer of this model to other countries is unlikely.

  10. Option II allows group certification of smallholder producer organizations, whereas Option I is for large farms.

  11. In the GlobalGAP vegetable scheme, the exporter also provided initial inputs on credit.

  12. Timely/frequent harvesting, and pulping and sun drying (Arabica coffee) or fermentation and sun drying (cocoa).

  13. In one of the unsuccessful organic spice schemes studied by Akyoo (2010), the scheme owner ran short of crop finance and withdrew from the market. Another organic buyer purchased most of the crop, but on an ‘as seen’ basis without a premium.

  14. Both the operators of the spice schemes studied by Akyoo (2010) sold only to the organic market.

  15. The absence of a remunerative price spread in the robusta coffee market appears to have been one factor underlying low exporter commitment in an UTZ Certified coffee scheme studied by Bolwig and Lin (2008).

  16. In the range of cases studied, certification entry barriers for exporters and farmers were lowest for organic certification (and were also low for farmers, but not necessarily exporters, for Fairtrade certification). This is related to organic standards being defined mainly in terms of prohibitions on use of synthetic inputs rather than prescriptions for specific production methods, and to low or negligible existing use of synthetic inputs among East African smallholders.

  17. Two of the three most successful schemes studied were operated by international trading companies. The third was operated by a producer organization with a long-standing link to a UK Fairtrade buyer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Technical University of Denmark, Roskilde, Denmark

    Simon Bolwig

  2. Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark

    Lone Riisgaard

  3. Danish Institute for International Studies, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Peter Gibbon

  4. Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark

    Stefano Ponte

Authors
  1. Simon Bolwig
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  2. Lone Riisgaard
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  3. Peter Gibbon
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  4. Stefano Ponte
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Correspondence to Simon Bolwig.

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Bolwig, S., Riisgaard, L., Gibbon, P. et al. Challenges of Agro-Food Standards Conformity: Lessons from East Africa and Policy Implications. Eur J Dev Res 25, 408–427 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/ejdr.2013.8

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