Developing countries are likely to come under increasing pressure to make significant adjustments to the commodity choices in their agricultural production as radical changes in consumer choices continue to reduce demand for food crops once considered to be unchanging staples in the diets of many millions of people around the world, according to a European Commission study titled “Food Safety and Agricultural Health Standards: Challenges and Opportunities for Developing Country Exports” published earlier this year.
The study suggests that global trends may be pointing in the direction of a shift in demand for agricultural commodities such as tea, cocoa, sugar and coffee as well as other crops like cotton and tobacco which represent a significant portion of agricultural production in poor countries.
Taking their place, the study says, are so-called “high-value food products” including “fresh and processed fruits and vegetables, fish, meat, nuts, and spices.” These, the study says, “now collectively account for more than 50 per cent of the total agricultural food exports of developing countries. Their share of developing country trade continues to rise while that of traditional commodities declines”, the report adds.
And, according to the report, the decline in global demand for those agricultural food crops that have traditionally been the backbone of the economies of many poor countries is likely to persist for various reasons, not least “the proliferation and strengthening of food safety and agricultural health standards,” a process which it says is “occurring at the national and international levels, as well as in individual supply chains.” The report alludes to the concern that while “food safety and agricultural health standards are designed to manage risks associated with the spread of plant and animal pests and diseases and the incidence of microbial pathogens or contaminants in food, standards also can be used as a trade protection measure,” a circumstance that will “undermine the competitive progress already made by some developing countries and present insurmountable barriers to new entrants into the high-value food trade.”
The report alludes to “particular concern” that with developing countries lacking the “administrative, technical and other capacities to comply with new or more stringent (food safety) requirements” and, moreover, given the costs incurred to meet “compliance standards,” emerging food safety and agricultural health measures “will be applied in a discriminatory manner.” On the whole the report expresses the concern that “institutional weaknesses and compliance costs” in areas relating to food safety and agricultural health standards….will further marginalize weaker economic players including smaller countries, enterprises and farmers,” adding that the support available for capacity-building in this area is inadequate.
