Given the combination of poorly regulated
intensification, high levels of concern, and relatively advanced ability to detect and analyze contami- nants, as well as communicate them through mass and social media, it is not surprising that some of the most serious and widely publicized food safety problems are now occurring in emerging markets. Te incidents of 2014 mentioned above are just the latest in a long series of food safety scares, which also includes the deliberate addition of melamine in milk that sickened thousands and killed six infants in China in 2008. (Melamine is a nitrogen-rich chem- ical that, because it shows up as protein on tests for milk quality, was added by middlemen so that man- ufacturers would buy their product.)16 Tis practice of criminally adding melamine to milk began in response to China’s seting of higher standards for protein levels following a scandal in 2004 when 13 babies died aſter drinking nutritionally inadequate formula. Te melamine scandal well illustrates the challenges of improving food quality and safety in rapidly changing food systems in which regulatory capacity and private-sector incentives and compli- ance are weak. Such episodes lead to lack of trust in food, which
in turn spurs greater reliance on imported and pro- cessed food. And the massive markets for livestock products in Asia, whether because of or in spite of these scandals, are not following the predicted trajectory in which informal markets are rapidly replaced by formal markets (“supermarketization”). In Vietnam, for example, 97 percent of pork is sold in traditional wet markets.17 Even in Malaysia, where incomes are higher and supermarkets are common- place, traditional markets remain the preferred place for buying fresh meat.18 In east and southern Africa, informal markets currently supply 85–95 percent of the food purchased, and are predicted to predomi- nate well into the next decades.19 Food safety can also have an impact on food
exports and imports. Te increasing introduction of food safety standards could create barriers to market access for small-scale producers, while at the same time leading to advantages for domestic producers who produce high-value products for export at com- petitive prices. Emerging economies are well placed to predominate in these kinds of markets.
Most experts believe that the emerging markets
will eventually converge with the richer countries.20 Indeed, panic over food safety can be a driver for improvement. In the United States, Upton Sinclair’s
Predictably, placing large, dense human populations in close proximity to large, dense livestock populations brings both public health and environmental hazards—risks that are compounded by poor agricultural practices and lack of effective regulation.
1906 book Te Jungle, which exposed the shock- ing unsanitary practices in the Chicago meat yards, sparked widespread public outrage that eventually led to the establishment of the US Food and Drug Administration.21 From this perspective, the situa- tion in China—where a widely publicized finding is that half the establishments undergoing food inspec- tions fail to pass—may be more positive than the situation in India, where no reports on food safety inspection or results are publicly available.22 Gover- nance and transparency are a more general problem in emerging economies, however, and it is unlikely that food safety will be a leading area of good gov- ernance unless there is concerted public pressure to make it so.
OTHER HEALTH IMPACTS OF AGRIFOOD SYSTEMS
Foodborne disease is not the only impact agriculture has on human health. Since reliable records began in the first half of the 20th century, diseases have been emerging from agroecosystems at the rate of one every four months; three-quarters of these are zoo- notic. 23 Historically, most of the diseases that are transmissible between animals and humans emerged
FOOD SAFETY 45
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