Abstract
Developed countries are major markets for developing country fresh produce. Demand by developed country consumers for spotless produce has encouraged developing country consumers to rely increasingly on pesticides in producing fresh export vegetables. However developed country pesticide standards enacted in response to reports of increased farmer and farm worker pesticide poisoning and the food safety scandals of the 1980s and 1990s require changes in the way growers use pesticides. The EU has especially developed stringent food safety standards relating to, among other things, pesticide usage. Under EU pesticide standards (EU-PS) farmers are trained by their buyers on safe use of pesticides and then closely monitored under contract. This paper looks at the impact of these standards on developing country farmers’ use of alternative pest management practices, pesticide protective clothing and the actual usage of pesticides. It finds that compliance with EU-PS increases the use of alternative pest management practices and protective clothing. However, EU-PS has mixed effect on the quantity of pesticides used. The paper also finds that farmer’s education and access to information play an important role in the use of alternative pest management practices. The paper concludes that EU-PS encourage the use of alternative pest management practices and pesticide protective gear in production of fresh export vegetables. The findings imply that EU-PS promote environmentally-friendly methods of production of fresh export vegetables in developing countries.
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Notes
The public standards are the maximum pesticide residue limits while private protocols include industry retail standards (e.g., British Retail Consortium) and retailer-owned protocols such as Farm-to-Folk and Nature’s Choice, and voluntary GlobalGAP. See Jaffee (2003) for detailed discussion of these private and public food safety standards.
A copy of the questionnaire can be found in Appendix 1 of Okello (2005).
The classification of WHO class 4 pesticides as un-harmful is based on acute toxicity and hence does not take into account the long-term chronic health effects that might arise from the use of these pesticides. This study focused only on the acute health effects induced by the use of pesticides.
In this study a fallow was defined as leaving a plot untilled for a season (6 months) after a harvest of green beans.
In a Poisson regression model, multiplying the coefficient by 100 yields expected percentage change in the dependent variable when the explanatory variable increases by a unit, other things equal (see Wooldridge, p. 547). For the logged variables, the coefficients are interpreted as elasticities.
We thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting the inclusion of this statement.
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Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge support for this research from The Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, World Bank Consultancy, and Michigan State University’s Elton R. Smith Endowment, Department of Agricultural Economics and the Graduate School. We also thank Scott Swinton for providing extensive advice during this study and the preparation of earlier draft.
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Okello, J.J., Okello, R.M. Do EU pesticide standards promote environmentally-friendly production of fresh export vegetables in developing countries? The evidence from Kenyan green bean industry. Environ Dev Sustain 12, 341–355 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-009-9199-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-009-9199-y