605 Food Safety for Whom? Corporate Wealth vs. People's Health by GRAIN

Published on Sunday, May 15, 2011 by GRAIN

The steady stream of scandals, outbreaks of disease and regulatory crack-downs that is part and parcel of the industrial food system has made food safety a major global issue. Our growing reliance on corporate food and farming concentrates and amplifies risk in new and unprecedented ways, at scales never seen before, making intervention more necessary than ever to ensure that food does not make people sick. But behind all of the talk and action lies another agenda.

"Food safety" may sound like it is about protecting people's health or even the environment. The European Union boasts of a food safety system that runs "from farm to fork", a language meant to make consumers feel assured that someone is watching out for them. But what happens these days in the name of "food safety" is not so much about consumers or safety as it is about getting everyone who is involved in food production, preparation, and delivery to conform to a number of "standards" set by supermarkets and the food service industry that are first and foremost about ensuring their profits.

Governments may set the frame for food safety through a number of policies and administrative measures (inspection services, and so on), but the private sector draws up and implements the actual standards. This public–private division (and collusion) creates a host of problems, because we end up with a situation where:

• the industrial food sector is essentially regulating itself, which reinforces the case that food safety is not primarily about public health, especially when it manifests itself in terrible food poisoning outbreaks; and,

• governments end up working for the corporate sector, even though this is not their role, because the regulatory system is public while the standards are private.

Now, thanks to globalisation and the loosening of rules around trade and investment, this model of food safety is spreading-- subjecting farmers, fisherfolk, and food industry workers all over the world to its corporate dictates. If Indians want to sell fish or grapes to the European Union, they have to conform to EU regulations and the standards set by the supermarket chains that control the EU market. If Brazilians wants to sell poultry or soya to Saudi Arabia, the Gulf state's criteria will kick in. "Fine", you may think. "This is only about big industrial farm operations anyway." But the idea – and reality – is that countries adopt these standards and apply them to domestic markets as well, ultimately impacting on all farmers in any given country. They are not just for exporters.

Who sets those standards? And who benefits from them?

More food is traded across borders than ever before. The World Trade Organisation's agreement on agriculture started slashing farms tariffs and quotas almost 20 years ago. Since then, the battle line of food trade disputes has shifted to what are called "non-tariff" barriers, such as food safety standards. Today, if you want to protect your country's farmers from competition, you can't put a sign at the border saying "We have enough melons, keep out!" But you can put up a sign saying "We only accept melons that are halal, 15-20 cm in diameter, rinsed with potable water and certified to have been grown on farms with their own toilet facilities." Great for Carrefour, whose specially contracted suppliers will produce those very melons. But what about small farmers who can't handle all these criteria and the costs of certification that come along with them? If they are shut out of the supermarkets, what other options do they have?

An increasing share of the food that people buy is delivered to them through the supply chains of transnational supermarkets and food service corporations. Globally, food retail turns over US$4 trillion in sales each year. Supermarkets accounted for over half (51%) of those sales in 2009, with the top 15 corporations realising 30% of them. Pooled together, the top ten food retailers (Walmart, Carrefour, Metro, Tesco, Schwarz, Kroger, Rewe, Costco, Aldi and Target) raked in $1.1 trillion in 2009, enough to make them the thirteenth-richest "country" in the world. These are the firms shaping today's food safety systems and they wield enormous power in deciding not only where food is produced and where it is sold, but exactly how it is produced and handled.

There are all manner of development funds, micro-credit, and government subsidy programmes designed to help small farmers comply with these corporate standards. Through such programmes, a small number do manage to find tenuous spots producing on contract for supermarkets like Tesco or food-service companies like McDonalds. But the reality is that most farmers are simply shut-out, since supermarkets prefer to work with larger suppliers and farms. The space for a small farmer growing cabbages in China or potatoes in Zambia to market his or her produce is thus quickly shrinking as supermarkets and food service companies expand and as alternative channels, like wet markets and street vendors, are closed down by governments bent on applying the corporate standards. Only the corporations win in this situation-- not food producers or workers and not consumers.

How do we get out of this mess?

The corporate hijack of the food supply is not going unchallenged. A growing counter-movement of people is showing how real food safety can come only from a different model of food and agriculture.

Small-scale farmers teach us that food safety is not achieved through "zero tolerance" for micro-ogranisms or the "extreme hygiene" approach espoused by big corporations (pasteurisation, irradiation, sterilisation, etc.). Destroying biodiversity, including microflora and fauna, creates instability, which manifests itself in disease. It is better to aim for balances or equilibria through diversity, as these are the real pillars of harmony and health. This requires knowhow and it relies on short distances between production and consumption, but both are hallmarks of the alternative kind of food systems that a lot of people yearn for.

We must vigorously defend small vendors and street foods, as they often get vilified and wiped out in the name of food safety. Farmers' markets, community-supported agriculture, small shops and street hawkers – these are or can be the backbones of local economies and of what many believe is healthier food. Support for such circuits is on the upswing, but they need a lot more investment and effort, including on the specifics of food safety per se. Similarly, campaigns to keep foreign supermarkets like Walmart away or to prevent other countries from imposing their food standards are extremely important.

At the end of the day, food safety is about who controls our food. Should that be the corporations, or should that be us?