Analysis of Several Productive Development Policies in Uruguay

This paper reviews and assesses some of the Productive Development Policies currently being implemented in Uruguay. Three horizontal and three vertical policies are considered in light of the market and public failures they attempt to address and minimize. Horizontal policies comprise Innovation, Industrial Promotion and Directives for Industrial and Technological Development. Vertical policies include the analysis of Forestry Law, Meat Traceability and the Sustainable Production Project in the agricultural sector.Public economics, Regulation and industrial policy, Industrial policy

Developing systems to control food adulteration

The objective of this study is to explore the current strategies available to monitor and detect the economically and criminally motivated adulteration of food, identifying their strengths and weaknesses and recommend new approaches and policies to strengthen future capabilities to counter adulteration in a globalized food environment. Many techniques are used to detect the presence of adulterants. However, this approach relies on the adulterant, or means of substitution, being "known" and an analytical method being available. Further techniques verify provenance claims made about a food product e.g. breed, variety etc. as well as the original geographic location of food production. These consider wholeness, or not, of a food item and so do not need to necessarily identify the actual adulterant just whether the food is complete. The conceptual framework developed in this research focuses on the process of predicting, reacting and detecting economically and criminally motivated food adulteratio

Monitoring cold chain logistics by means of RFID.

Every day, millions of tons of temperature sensitive goods are produced, transported, stored or distributed worldwide. For all these products the control of temperature is essential. The term “cold chain” describes the series of interdependent equipment and processes employed to ensure the temperature preservation of perishables and other temperaturecontrolled products from the production to the consumption end in a safe, wholesome, and good quality state (Zhang, 2007). In other words, it is a supply chain of temperature sensitive products. So temperature-control is the key point in cold chain operation and the most important factor when prolonging the practical shelf life of produce. Thus, the major challenge is to ensure a continuous ‘cold chain’ from producer to consumer in order to guaranty prime condition of goods (Ruiz-Garcia et al., 2007).These products can be perishable items like fruit, vegetables, flowers, fish, meat and dairy products or medical products like drugs, blood, vaccines, organs, plasma and tissues. All of them can have their properties affected by temperature changes. Also some chemicals and electronic components like microchips are temperature sensitive

High-value supply chains, food standards and poor farmers in developing countries: the case of vegetable exports from Senegal

This paper studies the welfare effects of high-value FFV exports from Senegal to the EU. We analyze how the structure of the export supply chain has changed in response to tightening food standards and investigate the impact for the local population. The study yields four important findings. First, we find that public and private food standards in the EU have lead to increased consolidation and increased vertical coordination in the FFV supply chain with a shift away from smallholder contract-based production to integrated estate production. Second, these structural changes have increased the participation of rural households, and especially poorer households, in the supply chains through wage employment on FFV estates. Third, we find that household participation in FFV export production, whether through contract-farming or through estate wage employment, generates significant income gains. Fourth, high-value FFV trade has a major impact on rural poverty-reduction and the increasing prevalence of food standards is even enhancing this impact.International Relations/Trade,

Management of food cold chains traceability amid the COVID-19 pandemic

The present article considers the functioning of food supply chains and their major component — a continuous cold chain of perishable food products, including meat products, under the conditions of COVID‑19 pandemic. The issues of the impact of the pandemic on production, processing and commercial supply of meat and meat products in Russia and worldwide are being considered. The traceability of temperature fluctuations in meat processing plants is relevant; it becomes an increasingly important factor for efficient logistics to provide the best supply and to keep the food safe in the current conditions. Research data is presented here. The results of the research show that frozen foods serve as carriers and distributors of SARS-CoV‑2 infection without any contact between people. This conclusion highlights additional challenges in controlling the spread of COVID‑19 worldwide, and reveals the mechanism of the disease transmission, taking into account the peculiarities of temperature modes during storage and transportation of perishable meat products. The risks of food cold chains functioning under the conditions of pandemic, the adaptive strategies for their mitigation and logistical systems of tracking are considered, in particular, the application of various data technologies

How Blockchain Facilitates the Transition toward Circular Economy in the Food Chain?

Food loss and waste are two of the many problems that modern society is facing. To date, among many solutions, the circular economy is the one prevailing. A successful transition toward a circular economy (CE) requires the food sector to overcome the challenges of today's complex food supply chains such as information asymmetry, poor cooperation among stakeholders, and concerns about food safety. Blockchain, a form of distributed ledger technology, has been progressively gaining traction in supply chains in areas like data management, certifying product provenance and tracking products. Despite its importance, knowledge around the potential of the blockchain technology in facilitating the transition towards a circular economy in the agri-food sector is fragmented. This review provides evidence-based insights into the blockchain implementations in the food supply chains and the implications for CE. Our findings indicated four major areas that blockchain could accelerate CE in the agri-food sector: improving data utility; supply chain management efficacy; enhanced eco-efficiency; and superior traceability

The role of RFID in agriculture: Applications, limitations and challenges

The recent advances in RFID offer vast opportunities for research, development and innovation in agriculture. The aim of this paper is to give readers a comprehensive view of current applications and new possibilities, but also explain the limitations and challenges of this technology. RFID has been used for years in animal identification and tracking, being a common practice in many farms. Also it has been used in the food chain for traceability control. The implementation of sensors in tags, make possible to monitor the cold chain of perishable food products and the development of new applications in fields like environmental monitoring, irrigation, specialty crops and farm machinery. However, it is not all advantages. There are also challenges and limitations that should be faced in the next years. The operation in harsh environments, with dirt, extreme temperatures; the huge volume of data that are difficult to manage; the need of longer reading ranges, due to the reduction of signal strength due to propagation in crop canopy; the behavior of the different frequencies, understanding what is the right one for each application; the diversity of the standards and the level of granularity are some of them