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| Direct farm, production base, traceability and food safety in China |
| DING Ji-ping, HUANG Ji-kun, JIA Xiang-ping, BAI Jun-fei, Steve Boucher, Michael Carter |
1、Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of
Sciences, Beijing 100101, P.R.China
2、University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, P.R.China
3、College of Economics & Management, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, P.R.China
4、College of Economics and Management, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, P.R.China
5、Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA |
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摘要 With the rapid growth of China’s economy, rising demand for safety food has been accompanied by frequent food safety scandals. Given that China’s farming is dominated by millions of small-scale farms, ensuring food safety is a major challenge facing the public and private sectors. The direct farm (DF) program, initiated in 2008, represents one of the government’s major initiatives to modernize the distribution of fresh fruit and vegetables (FFV) and improve food safety. Under the DF program, participating national and international retailers are expected to establish more direct procurement relationships with farm communities. While it is often claimed that greater participation by retailers in the production and post-harvest processing implied the DF program will lead to improved quality, safety and traceability, systematic evidence remains elusive as existing studies are largely narrative, based on case studies, or theoretical inference. Little empirical evidence is available for a broader evaluation of the DF program. This paper aims to fill this gap by assessing the overall performance of a single retailer’s DF experience with respect to the procurement and food safety of FFV. We use data from a survey of production managers of 35 DF production bases (PBs) spread across 11 provinces, 3 cities and 1 autonomous region in China. The results show a mixture of opportunities and challenges. On one hand, the DF program improves production practices and distribution channels of FFV produced on its PBs, thus facilitating the move of China’s food system towards improved food safety compliance. On the other hand, significant heterogeneity in the traceability of food and the ability of DF to meet higher safety standards is evident both across major product categories and across household-operated vs. firm-operated PBs. The paper concludes with policy implications.
Abstract With the rapid growth of China’s economy, rising demand for safety food has been accompanied by frequent food safety scandals. Given that China’s farming is dominated by millions of small-scale farms, ensuring food safety is a major challenge facing the public and private sectors. The direct farm (DF) program, initiated in 2008, represents one of the government’s major initiatives to modernize the distribution of fresh fruit and vegetables (FFV) and improve food safety. Under the DF program, participating national and international retailers are expected to establish more direct procurement relationships with farm communities. While it is often claimed that greater participation by retailers in the production and post-harvest processing implied the DF program will lead to improved quality, safety and traceability, systematic evidence remains elusive as existing studies are largely narrative, based on case studies, or theoretical inference. Little empirical evidence is available for a broader evaluation of the DF program. This paper aims to fill this gap by assessing the overall performance of a single retailer’s DF experience with respect to the procurement and food safety of FFV. We use data from a survey of production managers of 35 DF production bases (PBs) spread across 11 provinces, 3 cities and 1 autonomous region in China. The results show a mixture of opportunities and challenges. On one hand, the DF program improves production practices and distribution channels of FFV produced on its PBs, thus facilitating the move of China’s food system towards improved food safety compliance. On the other hand, significant heterogeneity in the traceability of food and the ability of DF to meet higher safety standards is evident both across major product categories and across household-operated vs. firm-operated PBs. The paper concludes with policy implications.
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Received: 27 October 2014
Accepted:
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| Fund: This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71333013) and a grant from the Regents of the University of California at Davis, USA (201122072). |
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Corresponding Authors:
HUANG Ji-kun, Tel: +86-10-64889440,Fax: +86-10-64856533, E-mail: jkhuang.ccap@igsnrr.ac.cn
E-mail: jkhuang.ccap@igsnrr.ac.cn
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| About author: DING Ji-ping, E-mail: dingjp.11b@igsnrr.ac.cn; |
Cite this article:
DING Ji-ping, HUANG Ji-kun, JIA Xiang-ping, BAI Jun-fei, Steve Boucher, Michael Carter.
2015.
Direct farm, production base, traceability and food safety in China. Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 14(11): 2380-2390.
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