World Food Policy Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2015 | Page 55

World Food Policy

In Asia

tendency in agriculture as well as diets
is “the suppression of particularities of
time and place” and the disconnection of
production and consumption.

The massive protests following
beef imports suspected of BSE in Korea
in 2008 are partly due to distrust in the
behavior of retailers, some of whom
were selling American beef as domestic
beef. Due to the growing gap between
producers and consumers, it becomes
increasingly difficult for consumers
to understand the way food has been
produced. “Both the physical distance
and the mental distance between
producers and consumers have grown”
(Brom 2000, 129). In the UK, publication
in 2002 of the Curry Report demanding to
reconnect production and consumption
of food indicates a milestone in policy
development (Wiskerke 2003).

The increasing marketing power
of modern distribution is having mixed
effects on these food safety problems.
What is especially affected by food
crises is consumer trust in the reliability
of suppliers (Böcker and Hanf 2000).
Food crises are commonly followed
by strategies of differentiation through
quality for all actors in food chains
(Ménard and Valceschini 2005). On
the one hand, promotion of food safety
is a key communication strategy of
supermarkets; thus, consumers associate
purchases in supermarkets with enhanced
quality assurance. On the other hand,
these perceptions are not necessarily
paralleled with genuine efforts on the
part of modern distribution. Besides,
consumers are made increasingly
dependent on the information provided
by a small number of retailers (Ménard
and Valceschini 2005).

In Asia, some authors consider
that concern for food safety has emerged
since food availability is no longer a
concern (Changchui 2006). Sources of
food contamination have also increased.
This is because of the increase in industrial
and domestic sources of pollution close
to agricultural production areas, and also
because of the rise in the use of chemical
inputs by farmers. In China, consumers’
concerns include pesticides, heavy
metals, and growth hormones contained
in produce, as well as contamination from
water and soil (Wei 2006). This is close to
the concerns of Vietnamese consumers,
who worry first about pesticide
contamination in fruits and vegetables
followed by antibiotics in meat (Figuié et
al. 2004). In the Philippines, consumers
are concerned first about the physical
appearance of fruits and vegetables,
followed by pesticide residues (Battet al.
2006).

With increased facility for
regional trade, there are also new worries
about food safety. As highlighted by
a meeting of consumer protection
associations in 2005, the benefits
of economic integration are mostly
discussed from the point of view of
businesses rather than that of consumers
(Consumers International 2005).

The rapid development of
supermarkets in both developed and
developing countries has been covered
extensively in reports in the last decade,
particularly by Reardon et al. (2003). In
Asia, the first supermarkets emerged in
the 1990s after their rapid development
in Latin America. The westernization
of Asian diets, the development of
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