Bans,tests, and alchemy: Food safety regulation and the Uganda
fish export industry |
| |
| Authors: | Stefano Ponte |
| |
| Institution: | (1) Danish Institute for International Studies, Strandgade 56, 1401 Copenhagen, Denmark |
| |
| Abstract: | Contemporary regulation of food safety incorporates principles of quality management and systemic performance objectives that
used to characterize private standards. Conversely, private standards are covering ground that used to be the realm of regulation.
The nature of the two is becoming increasingly indistinguishable. The case study of the Ugandan fish export industry highlights
how management methods borrowed from private standards can be applied to public regulation to achieve seemingly conflicting
objectives. In the late 1990s, the EU imposed repeated bans on fish imported from Uganda on the basis of food safety concerns.
However, the EU did not provide scientific proof that the fish were actually “unsafe.” Rather, the poor performance of Uganda’s
regulatory and monitoring system was used as justification. Only by fixing “the system” (of regulations and inspections) and
performing the ritual of laboratory testing for all consignments for export to the EU did the Ugandan industry regain its
status as a “safe” source of fish. Yet, gaps and inconsistencies abound in the current Ugandan fish safety management system.
Some operations are by necessity carried out as “rituals of verification.” Given the importance of microbiological tests and
laboratories in the compliance system, “alchemic rituals” provide an appropriate metaphor. These rituals are part and parcel
of a model that reassures the EU fish-eating public that all is under control in Uganda from boat to point of export. As a
consequence, actual non-compliance from boat to landing site allows the fishery to survive as an artisanal operation.
Stefano Ponte
is Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, Copenhagen. His research focuses on the role of standards,
regulation and quality conventions in the governance of agro-food value chains, with particular focus on Africa. He is co-author
of Trading Down: Africa, Value Chains and the Global Economy and The Coffee Paradox: Global Markets, Commodity Trade and the
Elusive Promise of Development. |
| |
| Keywords: | Agrifood systems European Union Fish export Food safety Rituals of verification Standards Uganda Value chains |
| 本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录！ |
|
