I think that as private standards become increasingly pervasive means of regulating the global food system, we'll be seeing development funds increasingly devoted to subsidizing the training and certification programs that enable export-oriented farmers in the Global South to access these markets.

There's a story in the Middle East Times about one such scheme funded by the Dutch government to train some of the 800 farmers in the Gaza Strip in the Eurepgap protocols (100% Dutch supermarkets sell 100% EurepGAP-certified produce). The program is run by Israel/Palestinian Center for Research and Information (IPCRI).

Sadly, one of the 40 farmers in the first graduating class was killed last Sunday, May 7, as he tended to his watermelon crop, by an Israeli shell supposedly aimed at militants who fire homemade rockets from Gaza into Israel. It makes me wonder a couple things: 1) if growing food under military occupation and state-sponsored terror can be considered "Good Agriculture Practice", with all the extra market value for European consumers.

Check out Vanadana Shiva's article about India's Proposed Food Safety & Standards Bill. One excerpt:

While food hazards grow, food safety laws are being shaped which deregulate large corporations and over-regulate the small scale self organized economy. Such industrial food safety standards promote large scale globalised production, and act against local foods. These laws are also the basis of the Sanitary and Phyto Sanitary Agreement of WTO.

Shiva is one of the best critics of the WTO and this article is a case in point. However, in focusing on the WTO, she overlooks corporate para-state institutions like EurepGAP, which actually bypass the WTO by one-upping it on free market rhetoric by suggesting that their policies merely reflect the demands of its ("sovereign"?) consumer base.

According to the Business Standard entitled `EU standards bleed Indian traders':

In some cases, the cost of complying with the EU standards [i.e. EurepGAP] is as high as 65 per cent of the production cost of the goods, with the high cost of EU compliance certificates and the lack of availability of certifying agencies in the country making exporting to the EU difficult, the survey said.

Note that even though Eurep, which operates EurepGAP, is a consortium of entirely private firms, this article in the Business Standard basically equates exporting to EurepGAP to exporting to the EU.

I just came across this 2004 article by Wendy Johnson about the standards for cherry production in British Colombia.

What is surprising to me is not only that industrialized fruit farms in the South are adapting more quickly to new standards than their Canadian counterparts, but also that on some of the farms in Chile and Argentina each field "grows for a specified country and follows its particular maximum residue levels designations".

The conclusion?

It is hard to argue with a system that puts the quality of food first, but there is the nagging suspicion this will spell the end of some family farms. This industry-changing event is just a sign of things to come.

Review of: Jason Konefal, Michael Mascarenhas, and Maki Hatanaka (2005) "Governance in the global agro-food system: Backlighting the role of transnational supermarket chains" Agriculture and Human Values 22: 291–302.

Reviewer: kjmcw

Some of the liveliness of contemporary democracy is to be found away from the polling booths, where one often looks for it in vain, in the less examined machinery of science and technology policy-that is, in technical advisory committees, court proceedings, regulatory assessments, scientific controversies, and even the ephemeral web pages of environ-mental groups and multinational corporations. (Jasanoff 2005: 9)

The authors of "Governance in the global agro-food system: Backlighting the role of transnational supermarket chains" to a certain degree echo Jasanoff#039s argument above that science and technology policy is an increasingly important nexus of conflict and debate about all aspects of public life. However, while Jasanoff apparently sees hope, "liveliness", and opportunities for greater democratic participation, Konefal et al. are less optimistic, and perceive an opaque realm of "backstage" deal making by technocrats from the highest echelons of supermarket firms.

Kenyan newspaper The Standard is reporting about changes to the export market for cut flowers. 

The small-scale farmers have been unable to meet the high cost of certification required by foreign certifying bodies. "This is why the Government through financial support from the development partners are developing a programme to keep the small scale farmers afloat," said Muriithi. The small-scale farmers, who accounted for more than half of Kenya’s flowers export market a decade ago, now supply less than ten per cent of the total export volumes.

What's interesting is that this is a public body in Kenya dealing with a private body in Europe (Eurepgap).

It's a real tragedy that the brightest minds in animation and video production technology work for marketing departments. Eurepgap's new "motivator" video, shown at their conference in Paris October 17-19, is a case in point. Are you ready to be un-impressed?

Includes awkward interventions from technocrats of Europgap, and delegates from McDonald's, Sainsbury's, Tesco, etc. Also contains a brief but flashy history of EurepGAP since 1999, which begins with Christian Moeller, the secretary of EurepGAP, reading this bizarre introduction off a teleprompter: "I would like to invite you now ... on a short journey... on (sic) our milestones, and values, and find out how you can benefit and share our common vision ... the vision of Eurepgap: global partnership for safe and sustainable agriculture."