Production of fresh vegetables for export has grown rapidly in a number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa over the last decade. This trade brings producers and exporters based in Africa together with importers and retailers in Europe. Large retailers in Europe play a decisive role in structuring the production and processing of fresh vegetables exported from Africa. The requirements they specify for cost, quality, delivery, product variety, innovation, food safety and quality systems help top determine what types of producers and processors are able to gain access to the fresh vegetables chain and the activities they must carry out. The control over the fresh vegetables trade exercised by UK supermarkets has clear consequences for inclusion and exclusion of producers and exporters of differing types, and for the long-term prospects for the fresh vegetables industry in the two major exporting countries studied, Kenya and Zimbabwe.

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Governance and Trade in Fresh Vegetables: The Impact of UK Supermarkets on the African Horticulture Industry

This paper assesses the current state of evidence on the impact of trade policy reform on poverty in developing countries. There is little empirical evidence addressing this question directly, but a lot of related evidence on specific aspects. We summarize this evidence using an analytic framework addressing four key areas: economic growth and stability; households and markets; wages and employment and government revenue. Twelve key questions are identified and empirical studies and results are discussed. We argue that there is no simple generalizable conclusion about the relationship between trade liberalization and poverty, and the picture is much less negative than is often suggested. In the long run and on average, trade liberalization is likely to be strongly poverty alleviating, and there is no convincing evidence that it will generally increase overall poverty or vulnerability. But there is evidence that the poor may be less well placed in the short run to protect themselves against adverse effects and take advantage of favorable opportunities.

/pdf/trade-liberalization-and-poverty-the-evidence-so-far-59kawhxtwc.pdf

Trade Liberalization and Poverty: The Evidence So Far

Quality and safety standards in the food industry, developments and challenges

Actors and institutions in localities and regions across the world are seeking prosperity and well-being amidst tumultuous and disruptive shifts and transitions generated by: an increasingly globalised, knowledge-intensive capitalism; global financial instability, volatility and crisis; concerns about economic, social and ecological sustainability, climate change and resource shortages; new multi-actor and multi-level systems of government and governance and a re-ordering of the international political economy; state austerity and retrenchment; and, new and reformed approaches to intervention, policy and institutions for local and regional development. 
Local and Regional Development provides an accessible, critical and integrated examination of local and regional development theory, institutions and policy in this changing context. Amidst its rising importance, the book addresses the fundamental issues of ‘what kind of local and regional development and for whom?’, its purposes, principles and values, frameworks of understanding, approaches and interventions, and integrated approaches to local and regional development throughout the world. The approach provides a theoretically informed, critical analysis of contemporary local and regional development in an international and multi-disciplinary context, grounded in concrete empirical analysis from experiences in the global North and South. It concludes by identifying what might constitute holistic, inclusive, progressive and sustainable local and regional development, and reflecting upon its limits and political renewal.

Local and Regional Development

Global Change in Agrifood Grades and Standards: Agribusiness Strategic Responses in Developing Countries

This paper explores the impact of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures in developed countries on developing country exports of agricultural and food products. It identifies the problems that developing countries face in meeting SPS requirements and how these relate to the nature of SPS measures and the compliance resources available to government and the supply chain. The paper examines the impact of the WTO's SPS Agreement on the extent to which SPS measures impede exports from developing countries. It identifies the problems that limit the participation of developing countries in the SPS Agreement and their concerns about the way in which it currently operates.

Barriers to Agricultural Exports from Developing Countries: The Role of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Requirements

http://directory.umm.ac.id/Data%20Elmu/jurnal/UVW/World%20Development/Vol29.Issue1.2001/1091.pdf

Strategic responses to food safety legislation

Marketing systems for fresh food products are frequently analysed in the economics and marketing literature, most often either in terms of a quantitative model reflecting some policy or environmental concern, or in terms of a simple description of the shape and size of the system. Considers explicitly the nature of the relationships at each level of a marketing system, using methods derived from the transaction cost and marketing literatures. The methods focus on simple evaluations of transactions at each level of a system, and are applied to the marketing system for a fresh product from Egypt to the UK.

Assessing transaction costs to describe supply chain relationships in agri‐food systems

This article addresses the role and impact of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement on prospects for export trade by developing countries. The SPS Agreement aims to facilitate discussion under the aegis of the World Trade Organization (WTP). It provides an enquiry and dispute settlement procedure; it also offers certain concessions and aid to developing and least developed countries. The article presents data on participation and several objective measures of the way the Agreement works for developing countries. Participation in the Agreement by developing countries is relatively low, despite the fact that several current issues (for example aflatoxins, salmonella) impact directly on such countries. The article suggests ways that developing countries can benefit further from the operation of the SPS Agreement, and explores how the standards operated by certain countries might act as a trade barrier to exports from developing countries. [Econ-Lit citations: L660, F100, Q170] © 1999 John Wiley & Sons.

Rupert Loader

Papers

Barriers to Agricultural Exports from Developing Countries: The Role of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Requirements

Barriers to Agricultural Exports from Developing Countries: The Role of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Requirements

Strategic responses to food safety legislation

Assessing transaction costs to describe supply chain relationships in agri‐food systems

Impact of sanitary and phytosanitary standards on developing countries and the role of the SPS Agreement