Customising
the feast
The
profits that developing countries had hoped to achieve in wake of the
WTO regime have proved to be rather illusory, says KP Sareen
Food
is big business not only in India but also in most key overseas markets.
The cross border transfer of processed foods is reported to be within
an average value of $500 billion and is ever growing. Products traded
include processed and preserved foods of plant, animal and marine origin
as well as fresh fruits and vegetables, grains and beverages. Food production
is gradually inching towards total mechanisation of processes, which
are manned by skilled labour and the safe transportation of food over
long distances is now possible.
There
is also a dramatic increase in countries engaged in food production,
export of processed foods, and the internationalisation of food tastes
and habits as well is seeing an upswing. At the same time food trade
is an extremely complex proposition, which includes exporters, importers,
governments, international organisations, and a mass of buyers and sellers
forging various kinds of commercial arrangements. Hence, it is imperative
that the foods produced for export to these countries meet the minimum
international standards consistently as specified by the Codex Alimentarius
Commission as well as the buyer’s specifications accompanied by the
regulations of the importing countries.
In
addition, an increasing number of importing countries are demanding
Agreed Inspection and Examination Procedures (AIEP) as well as certification
by the governments of the exporting countries specifying that the products
are in compliance with their standards. Some countries, though, are
over protective. However, Codex has established a Haccp (Hazard Analysis
Critical Control Point) based approach as a benchmark in international
food trade to ensure food safety.
In
the wake of WTO
The Uruguay round of the WTO summit saw trade in food products coming
within the fold of multilateralism for the first time. There was a general
sense of enthusiasm, especially in the corridors of developing countries.
They saw a tremendous opportunity of popularising a large variety of
their indigenous products. They saw – we now know a little naively-
the developed countries opening up their markets to exports. Their optimism
had a definite basis – the WTO promised a fair rule-based regime for
trade in food products . There were two other agreements, the agreement
on Sanitary and Phyto Sanitary Measures (SPS) and the agreement on Technical
Barriers to Trade (TBT).
It
seemed very reasonable to agree that since food trade did involve issues
of food safety and public health, and since each country had a definite
responsibility for these for their own citizens, there should be standards
and guidelines to protect the global consumer from unsafe food and from
being misled by inaccurate or fraudulent labelling. Specific mention
of Codex, which was created in 1963 to develop food standards, guidelines
and related texts such as codes of practice in the WTO texts was reassuring
for the developing world. It took care of any apprehension that standards,
whether for foodstuffs or for labelling or indeed for any regulatory
activity, may be arbitrary or whimsical.
The
fact that the SPS agreement did permit countries to set higher standards
than Codex was certainly worrying. But this was addressed by requiring
any such deviation from Codex to be based on verifiable, scientific
evidence. The fact that many developing countries simply did not have
in place or even the means to put in place elaborate regulatory institutions
and mechanisms was also addressed by appropriate documentation of the
intent to provide capacity building assistance and so forth.
For
the developing world, however, the experience post-Uruguay can hardly
be called satisfactory. The gains of the WTO regime, in the area of
trade in agriculture, have proved to be rather illusory. Standards for
ensuring food safety and fair trade practices seem to have negated any
gains that may have accrued from market access promises.
This
and the fact that while the developing world continues to struggle to
meet existing standards, it is forced to look at and consider yet other
standards. And one such area that everyone is now being asked to address
is traceability. Following the events of September 11, 2001, the USFDA
(US Food and Drug Administration) passed a Bioterrorism Act to....
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