Traceability and Demand Sensitiveness: Evidences from Italian Fresh Potatoes Consumption

When a traceability system takes place, either when mandatory or voluntary, many questions arise that need to be addressed and answered. One of the firsts concerns whether it introduces new costs with no gain in efficiency or, on the contrary, the system efficiency increases lowering costs and, as a consequence, market price of the good in hand. Among others, another issue that only rarely is addressed regards the effect of a price change on the final market. The objective of this paper was to simulate the effect on fresh Italian vegetables market of prices change due to a newer traceability procedure, focusing on early potato. Reasons why early potato was the main object of our study will be explained in detail later in the paper. Moreover, this study concerns a demand system estimation that has, as main goal, the measurement of own and cross price elasticities as well as expenditure elasticities. Such estimations are not strictly related with traceability because they measure any change in quantity demanded due to price changes due to any market perturbation. However, since early potato is experiencing a peculiar market and chain change in Italy, our simulation is meant to reason in terms of a “what if” approach, formally simulating the effect of any change in price due to an hypothesis of traceability system involved. In order to estimate a demand system, real household consumption data (3,000 observations) of a statistically representative sample of the Italian population of households was taken into account. Relevant measures of market variables were estimated by means of a Linear Almost Ideal Demand System implementing a large set of fresh vegetables: potato split in early and late, cabbage, salad, mushrooms, fruits vegetables, roots, asparagus, onion, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, beans, zucchinis and others.traceability, early potato, censored demand system estimation, sample selection approach., Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Stopping Illegal Fishing and Seafood Fraudsters: The Presidential Task Force’s Plan on Tackling IUU Fishing and Seafood Fraud

Worldwide seafood markets have a major problem: too often, the seafood listed on the menu is of a different species than what is served. This phenomenon—known as seafood fraud—and the related practice of illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing threatens the sustainability of our oceans, poses health risks to consumers, and forces consumers to pay a high price for a cheap product. Previous domestic and international efforts to combat this issue have failed for a number of reasons, including the international nature of the industry, a byzantine supply chain, the large number of entities responsible for combatting the issue, the lack of resources provided to those entities, and the difficulty identifying and differentiating species of seafood. Recent efforts, like an Action Plan promulgated by the Presidential Task Force on Combating Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing and Seafood Fraud, show promise of curbing the issue, but are nevertheless insufficient. This Note argues for a bilateral agreement between the United States and European Union that provides for coordinated programs and enforcement mechanisms

Grass-Fed Certification: The Case of the Uruguayan Beef Industry

International Relations/Trade, Livestock Production/Industries, Q13, Q17,

A Meticulous Food Safety Plan Today Avoids Handcuffs Tomorrow

In August 2010, thousands of people across the United States were poisoned by eating eggs unknowingly tainted with Salmonella enteritidis bacteria. Following a lengthy investigation, the owners of the facility where the outbreak began were sentenced to three months in prison. This is not a one-off case; poor food safety practices are responsible for several outbreaks and often end in incarceration. Filthy hen houses, diseased fruit storage, and negligent food processing may be the last thing we want to imagine, but these practices have much to teach today\u27s food producers. This article first examines how poor food production practices can lead to an environment ripe for spread of disease and an unacceptable level of contamination. Then, it explores what companies can do to prevent such unacceptable conditions, decrease the likelihood and severity of an outbreak and, of course, avoid incarceration

Traceability for Food Safety and Quality Assurance: Mandatory Systems Miss the Mark

Traceability systems are record-keeping systems that are primarily used to help keep foods with different attributes separate from one another. When information about a particular attribute of a food product is systematically recorded from creation through marketing, traceability for that attribute is established. Recently, policy makers in many countries have begun weighing the usefulness of mandatory traceability for managing such diverse problems as the threat of bio-terrorism, country-of-origin labelling, mad cow disease, and identification of genetically engineered foods. The question before policymakers is, When is mandatory traceability a useful and appropriate policy choice?Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Brazilian Buffalo Genetic Variability by Cross-Specific Microsatellite Set

Buffaloes (Bubalus bubalis) are widely distributed and were introduced to Brazil in 1895. Most of the molecular genetic characterization of buffaloes has been done with cross-specific (cattle) markers, but few of them include Brazilian populations. Nineteen commonly used cattle microsatellites were tested to develop a multiplexed set of microsatellites and characterize Brazilian buffalo. Three PCR mixes were finally developed with the 11 markers that succeed in amplify and were polymorphic (58%). The average number of alleles was 5.42, with an average observed and expected heterocigozity of 0.441 and 0.695, respectively. As it was expected, Brazilian buffalo variability was lower than the previously reported from the domestication centres (China and India), but higher than the seriously selected European populations. The exclusion power calculated for the eleven markers in Brazilian buffalo was 0.9999999996, this allows its use in DNA based traceability.Instituto de Genética Veterinari

MARKETING OF SAFE FOOD THROUGH LABELING

After a series of food safety crises during the 1990s, regulators, producers, and retailers alike are trying to regain consumer confidence by redesigning legislation and quality-assurance programs. These programs focus on process innovation, traceability, and identity preservation of products. This paper reviews current developments in the European food and retail industry. Hypotheses on the link between structural adjustments in the food production and marketing chain and the provision of safe food emerge. In addition, we report results from a survey on consumer perception of food-safety attributes and discuss the opportunities for and limits of marketing safe food through labels.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Marketing,

Life Cycle Costing and Food Systems: Concepts, Trends, and Challenges of Impact Valuation

Our global food systems create pervasive environmental, social, and health impacts. Impact valuation is an emerging concept that aims to quantify all environmental, social, and health costs of food systems in an attempt to make the true cost of food more transparent. It also is designed to facilitate the transformation of global food systems. The concept of impact valuation is emerging at the same time as, and partly as a response to, calls for the development of legal mechanisms to address environmental, social, and health concerns. Information has long been understood both as a necessary precursor for regulation and as a regulatory tool in and of itself. With global supply chains and widespread impacts, data necessary to produce robust and complete impact valuation requires participation and cooperation from a variety of food system actors. New costing methods, beyond basic accounting, are necessary to incorporate the scope of impacts and stakeholders. Furthermore, there are a range of unanswered questions surrounding realizations of impact valuation methods, e.g. data sharing, international privacy, corporate transparency, limitations on valuation itself, and data collection standardization. Because of the proliferation of calls for costing tools, this article steps back and assesses the current development of impact valuation methods. In this article, we review current methods and initiatives for the implementation of food system impact valuation. We conclude that in some instances, calls for the implementation of costing have outpaced available and reliable data collection and current costing techniques. Many existing initiatives are being developed without adequate consideration of the legal challenges that hinder implementation. Finally, we conclude with a reminder that although impact valuation tools are most often sought and implemented in service of market-based tools for reform, they can also serve as a basis for robust public policies

Framework para la Implementación de un Proyecto de la Arquitectura de Aplicación del Modelo Arquitectura Empresarial para la Gestión de la Trazabilidad Pecuaria

This article aims to use the framework Laravel for the development of a technology platform that allows implements one of the identified project in application architecture developed in the work of research called "Development of a model of enterprise architecture to manage the traceability of cattle livestock SMEs in Los Santos province, Panama”  the project has the title: Development and implementation of a software for the management and control of the livestock farms, articulated with the bovine traceability program. We have defined the data structure that is the model the different user views and controllers that allows communication between the layers of the model. All business will be sustainable and competitive if it is able to manage your information.  It is why among its benefits the project aims to achieve a competitive and sustainable sector with the use of ICT, and inform the program of group traceability and traceability of the processes currently running the Ministry of agricultural development (MIDA).  Articulate all the institutions that belong to the agricultural and livestock sector in the country.Keywords:  Framework, model view controller, business architecture, traceability

Iowa Animal Industry News, 2012, Vol. 14, no. 1

Newsletter produced by Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship about the animal industry in Iowa.Previously titled Animal Industry News