World Food Policy Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2015 | Page 54
The Role of Proximity and Standards in Guaranteeing Vegetable Safety in Vietnam
of weaknesses. Illustrations taken from
the authors’ work in Vietnam, and also
on some secondary sources, will then
be presented. The authors’ experience is
based on the study of domestic rather
than export markets, and on vegetables
rather than other commodities. The
paper concludes with a summary of the
main issues and some recommendations
in terms of research.
encephalopathy (BSE) struck in 1996,
followed by the dioxin crisis in Belgium
in 1999. Avian influenza started in Hong
Kong and then moved to inland China and
Vietnam in 2005. The response to food
scares is a drop in food consumption, and
recovery is always incomplete (Böcker
and Hanf 2000). After the second crisis of
BSE in 1999, three years were necessary
for consumption to reach its previous
level, despite very low real risk. Industrial
production, as well as information
brought to light by scientific experts,
was made invalid by BSE (Allaire 2005).
Organic agriculture is not spared from
stigmatization. In 2011, Escherichiacoli
that developed from germinated seeds
produced in an organic farm caused
the death of 38 people in Germany. The
origin of the bacteria had been wrongly
attributed to Spanish cucumbers by
German food safety authorities, which
led to more than 500 million euros in
losses due to the drop in consumption
(Wollman and Briat 2011). In 2003, Korea
banned beef imports from the United
States because of BSE. In early 2006,
Korea and the United States resumed an
import protocol. This resulted in what
was considered as one of the biggest
anti-government demonstrations in two
decades.
Although it is less characterized
by “de-territorialization” than other
sectors, agriculture is being increasingly
driven by international food chains.
Internationalization and concentration
are observed in the sector of agricultural
inputs as well as retailing. These processes
started to be documented in t he 1990s
(Goodman and Watts 1997; Morgan,
Marsden, and Murdoch 2006). According
to Friedmann (1994, 272), the dominant
Growing concern for food safety
Globally
T
he growing distrust of consumers
in the safety of food is widely
documented in both developed
and transitional economies. This is
related to the growing intensification (in
terms of use of chemical inputs) or even
industrialization of food production and
processing, as well as to the growing
distances between food production and
food consumption sites.
As stated by Ménard and
Valceschini (2005), “recent developments
have encouraged consumers to adopt
a ‘suspicious approach’.” Technological
innovations, combined with the
diversity of product origins and the
internationalization of trade, stimulate
consumers’ risk aversion, which has
been exacerbated by recent events such
as “mad cow” disease, the poultry flu
pandemic, etc. (p. 427). “The costs and
efficiency of alternative organizational
and institutional answers in establishing
credible commitments are at stake” (p.
428).
In Europe, food crises have
been especially acute in the meat sector
since the 1990s. Bovine spongiform
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