An FAO expert consultation on The Dynamics of Sanitary and Technical Requirements: Assisting the Poor to Cope was held at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome from 22 to 24 June 2004. Six experts provided working papers and participated in the consultation.
The objective of the consultation was to provide advice to FAO and Member Governments on the impact of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) standards on domestic livestock markets, and in particular the poor who participate in livestock food chains, and the extent to which their concerns are being addressed. The consultation was asked to deliberate on the following questions:
Scope of the consultation and definitions
While the consultation recognized that a wide range of standards can be applied in livestock food chains, the discussion focused on standards encompassed by the SPS agreement. SPS standards and regulations are one measure within a risk management strategy for livestock and public health.
Since the consultation believes that setting and application of standards is an element of risk management, it follows that standards should be evaluated within a risk management framework.
A value chain approach can be used to good effect to take into account participation and distributional impacts. There has been little work done to make a systematic typification of livestock value chains.
Who and what drives standards setting?
Standards are driven by consumers with high purchasing power, the demands of the export market, competition within the national market from export or export quality goods, and the influence of tourism.
Consumers with high purchasing power demand food which is safe, sustainable and ethical, free of toxic substances, residues, additives and contaminants. Consumers may have a disproportionate influence on standards setting compared to producers. Developed countries also have a disproportionately high role in both World Organisation for Animal Health and Codex. International standards should ideally be set at levels necessary for safety, but no higher, or they become exclusionary. In countries where supermarkets have made inroads into the domestic market, they introduce a variety of both safety and technical standards.
International standards setting, which sets the framework for negotiating power in the international arena, requires an understanding of the negotiating process and the ability to participate. There is a lack of representation of developing countries in SPS meetings and also in Codex. The private sector is having an important impact. Public sector involvement often seems to lag behind the private sector, or even be driven by the private sector.
Developing countries face a number of problems that prevent them from fully participating in the international standards setting process. These include lack of resources to attend meetings and prior negotiations, limited exploration of alternative measures more suited to developing countries, lack of economic evaluation, complexity of standards, frequent changes, lack of legal recourse.
How do existing and anticipated standards affect the structure of the livestock food chain and vice versa?
Food security has been an emphasis for many developing countries. Food safety is considered very important in developed countries but elsewhere has received less attention. Food safety needs to be given increasing but appropriate emphasis, as it is important to the poor.
It is not evident that risk is taken into account when assessing appropriate standards. Governments should be setting the minimum national level of risk. However, the international community needs to help them to do the appropriate risk assessment.
Trends in food chains include lengthening of chains, vertical integration and market concentration. There has been a decoupling of production locations from consumption, and therefore the risks through the food chain become an issue. OIE and Codex standards should be the minimum needed for safe operation of long food chains. The consultation is concerned that these standards are in fact moving to become more representative of affluent country producers and consumers, which may create obstacles to regional trade.
Cross-border food chains, and a dramatic rise in the market share of the modern retail sector in many countries have created a number of effects. Most notably, these are changes in procurement systems and shifts towards private safety and quality standards. Regional diversification and value adding introduces new products and the need for new standards.
People who are not involved in any kind of integration or concentration may not be affected by international standards at all, and they may continue to apply local standards. However, if consumers learn of new products or new standards, this may change the value of traditional knowledge.
Who is winning and who is losing from changes?
Impacts may be complex, affect each stakeholder differently, and change over time.
Winners include:
Losers include:
What can be done to help the losers? In particular, what can be done to assist the poor to cope?
Food safety is linked to food security, is beneficial to the poor when it is provided at an appropriate level, and deserves a higher priority on national agendas.
More efforts are needed to facilitate the poorest to access the negotiating process that precedes meetings. Membership of international standards setting bodies and trading blocs is beneficial. Poor producers and poor consumers are unlikely to have much voice in the standards setting process until they become organised and join lobbying groups.
It is necessary to promote standards setting appropriate for the risk management situation, and that can actually be enforced.
There is a need to make more effort in helping all member countries of these organizations to access the SPS information system.
It is important that all governments use standards setting as part of a risk management system, i.e. one that considers the level of risk and the measures that might be applied to mitigate it. Decision support tools are needed to assist policy makers. Mandated international organizations should provide their own assessment of the impact of changing standards on the poorest.
Good practice guidelines for practitioners exist, but not for all commodities and production systems, and they need to be updated and more widely disseminated. Assisting small farmers, traders and processors to enter formal (regulated) or vertically integrated markets will include but not be restricted to helping them to comply with standards.
Involvement of the private sector can produce beneficial changes, however this requires political stability, a sufficiently large and concentrated consumer population, a sufficient number of livestock producers to provide the necessary volume of produce, and sufficient infrastructure.
Those who cannot participate in the formal market may need to exit from livestock production and may require assistance.
Recommendations for FAO
Encourage a national agenda of gradual implementation to avoid serious adverse impact on the most vulnerable producers and consumers.
Be aware of proposals from the standards setting bodies, to review their impact on developing countries and different types of farming system, and consider them in an holistic manner.
Efforts should be made to identify the gaps in the science that impact on the standards setting process and provide information to the bodies and member countries involved in standards setting. This is the responsibility of the whole international community.
Monitor, as a regular process, the attendance of developing countries at key standards setting meetings, and explore alternative and innovative methods that do not necessarily involve attending central meetings.
There is no international organization currently monitoring, evaluating or communicating the impact of standards on sustainable development. It falls within FAO’s mandate to take on this role, taking a lead in this process.
Standards setting within a risk management context is a multi-disciplinary activity. FAO has a number of separate initiatives. These need to be synergized and harmonised into a programme. The consistent application of a standard framework is essential, and this should include economic evaluation. A value chain approach is useful to identify distributional and governance issues.
SPS standards can be valuable in promoting food safety, but the process by which they are set, and the speed at which they are implemented, may result in exclusion of vulnerable groups. FAO should develop appropriate strategies for analysis of the problem and promote effective methods of dealing with it.
FAO is in a position to champion and protect the interests of least developed member states and work with regional groups of standards setting organizations to take into account issues of relevance to low-income countries.
Information on food safety standards is available but scattered. There is a need to co-ordinate the dissemination of such information in a way that is useful to developing countries. The recently established FAO biosecurity information portal is highly recommended.
Advice and technical packages for practitioners, related to animal health food safety standards, are valuable - more are needed. They should be based on a supply-driven focus to risk management in the food or value chain.
This consultation and its documentation should be converted into a strategy for assisting the poor in the context of SPS agreements and should be funded accordingly.
