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Private Standards, Handling and Hygiene in Fruit Export Supply Chains: A Preliminary Evaluation of the Economic Impact of Parallel Standards
| Content Provider | AgEcon Search |
|---|---|
| Author | Vermeulen, Hester Jordaan, Daniel du Plessis Scheepers Korsten, Luuk Kirsten, Johann F. |
| Abstract | With the emergence of private food safety and quality standards in developed countries fruit exportingcountries in the developing world face increasing constraints to access markets in the richindustrialised countries in the North. Producers in the South have no alternative as to make thenecessary investments on farms and in pack houses to comply with the requirements of these foodquality and safety standards. The export of fresh fruit is an important component of South Africanagricultural exports, with citrus fruit exported to markets such as Europe being of particularimportance. This paper reports selected results from a large research project into the impact of privatestandard compliance on the quality of the fruit and the returns to farmers. The research processinvolved a multi-disciplinary analysis of Agricultural Economics and Microbiology / Plant pathologyas we analysed the dynamics of the citrus export supply chain from the farms in South Africa to theend consumer in Europe. Sampled fruit containers were followed through the whole supply chainwhich allowed us to provide an exposé of the behaviour of the different actors in the citrus supplychain and obtain some evidence of poor handling and hygiene standards by means of a comparison ofthe experimental observations with various relevant components of the EurepGAP control points andcompliance criteria for fruit and vegetables. Observations suggest that these standards are adequatelyapplied to the production and handling of fruit at the farm and pack house levels while on the otherhand the subsequent stages (mainly after the importing harbour in Europe) of the fruit supply chain areseemingly not subjected to the same strict requirements laid out for producers, leading to fruit qualitydeterioration and financial losses for producers. This constitutes clear parallel standards in terms offruit safety and quality standards between upstream and downstream sections of the supply chain andquestions thus the purpose of the standards and the financial return for producers making largeinvestments to comply with these privately introduced standards. |
| Related Links | https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/60887/files/2006-01.pdf |
| Page Count | 17 |
| File Format | |
| DOI | 10.22004/ag.econ.60887 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher Date | 2006-01-01 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Applied Economics Agricultural Economics Agri-economic Open Access Database Research in Applied Economics Research in Agricultural Economics Higher Study On Agricultural Economics Higher Study On Applied Economics Agricultural Research Documents Agrarian Economy & Research Higher Study Agri-economics Research in Economics Agri-economic Open Access Repository Statistics in Agricultural Economics International Relations/trade |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
| Subject | Economics, Econometrics and Finance |
