Saving two in a billion:: quantifying the trade effect of European food safety standards on African exports

Mycotoxin contamination of the feed supply chain: Implications for animal productivity and feed security

As illustrated in Africa's Silk Road: China and India's New Economic Frontier, the new South-South economic relations present real opportunities-as well as challenges-to African countries. They also highlight the need for complementary reforms by China and India to support more vigorous African development. In analyzing Africa's intensifying relationships with China and India, Africa's Silk Road examines the trends to date and considers the implications of these developments for the economic future of the African continent. The diagnosis cautions that the opportunities engendered by China and India's trade and investment with Africa will not necessarily be converted into growth and poverty reduction in the region. A critical finding of the study is that it is not just the quantity of these trade and investment flows that matters-it is also the quality of the overall commercial relationships underlying as well as shaping these flows. This paper contains the following headings: connecting two continents; performance and patterns of African-Asian trade and investment flows; challenges at the border - Africa and Asia's trade and investment policies; behind-the-border constraints on African-Asian trade and investment flows; between-the-border factors in African-Asian trade and investment; and investment-trade linkages in African-Asian commerce - scale, integration, and production networks.

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Africa's Silk Road: China and India's New Economic Frontier

Aflatoxin B1: A review on metabolism, toxicity, occurrence in food, occupational exposure, and detoxification methods.

According to World Trade Organization rules, countries may adopt regulations under the Agreements on Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT). We analyze the structure of these measures in agricultural trade. The inventory approach suggests that European countries have among the lowest coverage ratios of all OECD countries. Using a gravity equation, we also estimate their stringency. Our results suggest that they significantly reduce developing countries' exports to OECD countries, but do not affect trade between OECD members. Furthermore, European imports are more negatively influenced by SPS and TBTs than imports of other OECD countries.

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The Impact of Regulations on Agricultural Trade: Evidence from the SPS and TBT Agreements

The effects of varying regulatory standards on trade in agricultural products are at the forefront of policy debate. This paper employs a gravity model to estimate the impact of changes in aflatoxin standards on trade flows of groundnut products using trade data for Europe and Africa during 1989--1998. Results suggest that a 10 per cent tighter aflatoxin standard in European countries will reduce edible groundnut imports by 11 per cent. A new European Union regulation on aflatoxins will result in a trade flow that is 63 per cent lower than when the Codex Alimentarius international standards are followed. Copyright 2001, Oxford University Press.

What price precaution? European harmonisation of aflatoxin regulations and African groundnut exports

Growing concern over health risks associated with food products is at the forefront of trade policy debate. At the heart of this debate is the"precautionary principle,"which holds that precautions should be taken against health, safety, and environmental risks even when science has not established direct cause-and-effect relationships--as with, for example, the EUropean ban on hormone-treated beef. The authors quantify the impact on food exports from African countries of new EUropean Union standards for aflatoxins, structurally related toxic compounds that contaminate certain foods and lead to the production of acute liver carcinogens in the human body. The authors estimate the impact of changes in differing levels of such protection based on the EU standards (and suggested by international standards) for 15 EUropean countries and 9 African countries between 1989 and 1998. The results suggest that implementation of the EU's new aflatoxin standards will significantly hurt African exports to EUrope of nuts, cereals, and dried fruits, which are highly sensitive to the aflatoxin standards. The EU standards would reduce health risks by only about 1.4 deaths per billion a year but would cut African exports by 64 percent, or $670 million, compared with their level under international standards.

A race to the top? A case study of food safety standards and African exports

We use a partial-equilibrium multi-market international model to analyze trade and agricultural policies affecting peanut/groundnut products markets. The model covers four goods (food and crush quality groundnuts, groundnut oil and cake) in 13 countries/regions including a large set of developing countries (Argentina, China, the Gambia, India, Malawi, Mexico, Nigeria, Senegal, and South Africa). Welfare is evaluated by looking at the consumer's equivalent variation, quasi-profits in farming (groundnut farming, livestock), quasi-profit in crushing, and taxpayers' revenues and outlays implied by distortions. We calibrate the model on recent historical data. We analyze several groundnut trade liberalization scenarios. The impact of the reforms is measured in deviation from the recent historical baseline. Trade liberalization in groundnut markets has a strong South-South dimension opposing two large developing countries (India and China) to smaller developing countries mainly located in Africa. Current Chinese and Indian policies substantially depress the world prices of edible groundnuts, groundnut oil and groundnut meal. Following the removal of these distortions, African exporters present in these world markets would gain because they are net sellers of the cash crops. Consumers in China and India would be better off as well with lower consumer prices resulting from the removal of high tariffs more than offsetting the higher world prices of groundnut oil. The cost of adjustment would fall on farmers in India and China who would have to shift to other crops or activities. Crushing in India would also decrease because crushing margins would deteriorate. Net buyers of groundnut products in OECD countries will be worse off. We draw implications for Doha negotiations.

The Impact of Groundnut Trade Liberalization. Implication for the Doha Round

Many of the most important food safety issues in international trade today impact on developing countries. These countries, especially those in Sub-Saharan Africa, seek to expand access to international agricultural markets and integrate more fully into the global trade system. Questions of how to balance risk, expanding trade in agricultural products, and health concerns are at the forefront of trade debate. This chapter provides a case study of trade between Africa and Europe in agricultural products, from African exporters perspective. It presents results from empirical data and analysis on the trade effect of harmonisation of food safety standards within the European Union which we offer as a contribution to trade policy discourse on SPS standards and the multilateral trading system. Concern about the health risks of food and appropriate sanitary standards has been increasing in industrialised countries over the past decade (Pinstrup-Andersen 2000). Debate over food safety has been especially prominent in Europe (Nielsen and Anderson 2000). The use of import bans and regulatory intervention by the European Commission is increasingly justified, in part, under the ‘precautionary principle’ which seeks to mitigate against risk even under conditions in which science has not established direct cause and effect relationships. The European Commission's approach has been challenged in trade policy talks, therefore, on the basis that import restrictions have been employed without sufficient support from internationally recognised science.

Mirvat Sewadeh

Papers

Saving two in a billion:: quantifying the trade effect of European food safety standards on African exports

What price precaution? European harmonisation of aflatoxin regulations and African groundnut exports

A race to the top? A case study of food safety standards and African exports

The Impact of Groundnut Trade Liberalization. Implication for the Doha Round

The Economics of Quarantine and the SPS Agreement: Measuring the effect of food safety standards on African exports to Europe