Executive Interview - Kristian Moeller

Throughout history people have been facing risks associated with food. Food scares of the twentieth century have caused consumer panic leading to loss of confidence in the safety of the food chain. Many public and private initiatives in the form of food quality certification schemes have evolved to restore confidence. One such private initiative is the GLOBALGAP (former EUREPGAP). This executive interview discusses the role of GLOBALGAP in food certification with Dr. Kristian Moeller who is the Managing Director for GLOBALGAP. This discussion took place during IAMA’s 17th Annual World Forum and Symposium in Parma, Italy on June 25, 2007.EUREPGAP, GLOBALGAP, food safety, good agricultural practice, farm assurance. transmission rather than from incentive based contractual arrangements., Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Farm Management, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Q10, Q12, Q13,

Cross-border coordination in the Madagascar-EU lychee chain: the role of GlobalGAP

Madagascar has a tradition of agricultural trade (coffee, vanilla, cloves). In the 90s, the country started developing non-traditional exports, such as lychees, to the European Union (EU), thereby generating substantial cash revenues for small producers. In 2005, access to the EU market became more difficult, due to more stringent quality requirements and to the growing use of the private retailer standard GlobalGAP. Whereas the empirical literature on private standards presents GlobalGAP either as a success story or a threat for small producers, the case of Madagascar exhibits a specific dynamics: after booming in 2007, GlobalGAP is actually collapsing. The aim of this article is to disentangle the mechanisms of this evolution and to draw some conclusions regarding market access enhancement through private standards. This work is based on semi-structured interviews carried out with all stakeholders of the export chain, government agencies and programs supporting lychee production and on weekly data on lychee trade flows (2001-2010). Using a global value chain approach, we first show the importance of the chain structure: importers are identified as lead-firms (conversely to most studies dealing with private certification) in an environment characterized by low competition at the international level. We then evaluate the role of donors and trade facilitators as actors of the chain. After giving evidence for the collapse of GlobalGAP, we assess what is left of the GlobalGAP procurement system once it has been abandoned: stabilization of the relationship between exporters and producers and thus enhanced traceability, upgrading of private marketing infrastructures, improved management discipline. We conclude that in the Madagascar lychee chain, although GlobalGAP had little impact on market access.PRIVATE CERTIFICATION; GLOBAL CHAINS; NON-TARIFF MEASURES; FOREIGN AID; NON-TRADITIONAL EXPORTS

Spread of retailer food quality standards: an international perspective

Privately initiated food quality standards are currently important elements in the marketing of food and agricultural products. At the same time, they stand in the centre of a discussion about potential negative effects on small farmers and farmers in developing countries. This study aims at analysing the adoption of two private food standards, BRC Technical Food Standard and GlobalGAP, at an aggregated crosscountry level. The results of the econometric analysis reveal some (potential) barriers for developing countries to access this type of organisational innovation. Certificates seem to be issued more probably in larger and wealthier countries, countries with a better institutional quality, better infrastructural conditions and in former UK colonies

Costs and Benefits of Quality Systems: Case Study

The variety of quality systems is a very important and an actual theme in the agri-food sector. These quality systems are only partly acknowledged by different quality standard organizations, but customers within the supply chain demand them. Enterprises, which supply different customers and export abroad this, face the problem that they have to deal with several standards and implement them within the enterprise as well as take part in several systems audits and certifications. The economic problem consists of determining the most efficient introduction of a quality system or a combination of quality systems in the enterprise. The emphasis of the work lies in the development of a framework for the benchmarking of quality systems at all stages of the agri-food production and an allocation and operationalisation of cost and benefit categories. A concept including the database “QualintSys” was developed during a PhD-thesis to estimate the costs and benefits of quality systems.Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Farm Management, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Industrial Organization,

Public-private partnerships and GLOBALGAP standard adoption: evidence from small-scale fruit and vegetable farmers in Thailand

Crop Production/Industries,