Title: Trade, Food Standards and Poverty: The Case of High-Value Vegetable Exports from Senegal
Abstract: The structure of world agricultural trade has changed substantially since the 1980s with fresh food products such as FFV (fresh fruit and vegetables) gaining importance. These high-value commodities now account for half of all agro-food exports from developing countries to high-income countries (Unnevehr, 2000) and become important in the growing high-value urban markets within developing countries. Participation in high-value domestic and international agricultural markets is advocated as a major potential engine for economic growth and global poverty reduction. Especially high-value horticulture trade is sometimes mentioned to have a high potential for reducing poverty and benefiting local development because of the link to the rural economy and its intensive use of land and unskilled labour. At the same time it is argued that increasingly stringent food quality and safety standards act as barriers to trade and diminish the export opportunities of developing countries. Moreover, some studies argue that the benefits in high-value and high-standards food supply chains are extracted by multinational companies and developing countries elites, and that small and poor farmers are likely to be excluded from these supply chains and the benefits thereof (e.g. Dolan and Humphrey, 2000; Farina and Reardon, 2000). Other authors provide evidence that small farmers are included and do gain from high-value agricultural production and trade (e.g. Minten et al., 2006; Minot and Ngigi, 2004). The degree to which small farmers participate in and benefit from high-value agricultural production and trade is likely influenced by recent developments in global value chains, such as increased vertical coordination and increased pervasive 1
Publication Year: 2006
Publication Date: 2006-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 8
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