Private standards, small farmers and donor policy : EUREPGAP in Kenya

Abstract

Food safety has moved up the policy agenda in industrialised countries in recent
\nyears. Governments have tightened both product and process standards, and
\nbusinesses have had to respond to ever more stringent public food safety
\nstandards and the need to maintain consumer confidence. Private voluntary
\nstandards developed by groups of companies are one response to this challenge.
\nComplying with process-based standards and certification at the farm level has
\nbecome a market access condition for access for some products. Failure to meet
\nthese challenges will undermine rural development strategies predicated on
\nexpanding agricultural production and introducing high-value products. An analysis
\nof the EUREPGAP standard for horticulture links this standard to the development
\nof European Union food safety regulations. It is also bound up with the
\nmanagement of horticultural value chains that link together and coordinate the
\nactivities of producers, exporters, importers and retailers. As a pre-farm gate
\nstandard, EUREPGAP creates new challenges not only for farmers, but also for
\nthe exporters that play a key role in the horticultural value chains supplying
\nEuropean supermarkets. When some European supermarkets began to insist that
\nKenyan suppliers be certified, the potential impact on small farmers in Kenya was
\nrecognised by numerous development agencies. However, to the extent that their
\nresponses focused directly on the problems of small farmers rather than on
\ncertification as a value chain coordination issue, some of their interventions were
\nineffective. The future challenge for donors will be both to understand better how
\nthe global food business is organised into value chains that link together
\ndispersed economic agents, and to devise policies and programmes that
\nrecognise the possible trade-offs between business vitality and poverty reduction
\nand identify the roles and responsibilities of public and private actors in ways that
\nallow these trade-offs to be overcome.
\nKeywords: horticulture; trade; private standards; globalisation; small farmers.