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Decoupling from international food safety standards: how small-scale indigenous farmers cope with conflicting institutions to ensure market participation

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Abstract

Although inclusion in formal value chains extends the prospect of improving the livelihoods of rural small-scale producers, such a step is often contingent on compliance with internationally-promoted food safety standards. Limited research has addressed the challenges this represents for small rural producers who, grounded in culturally-embedded food safety conceptions, face difficulties in complying. We address this gap here through a multiple case study involving four public school feeding programs that source meals from local rural providers in the Bolivian Altiplan. Institutional logics theory is used to describe public food safety regulations and to compare them to food safety conceptions in the local indigenous Aymara rural setting. We identify a value-based conflict that leads to non-compliance of formal food safety rules that jeopardizes the participation of small farmers in the market. These include: (1) partial adoption of formal rules; (2) selective adoption of convenient rules; and (3) ceremonial adoption to avoid compliance. Decoupling strategies allow local actors to largely disregard the formal food safety regulations while accommodating traditional cultural practices and continuing to access the market. However, these practices put the long-term sustainability of the farmers’ participation in potentially favorable opportunities at risk.

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Notes

  1. The Aymara are part of the Andean people of South America and are one of the three largest indigenous peoples in the continent, along with Quechua and Guarani. Aymara communities are found in the Altiplan, between the Royal Cordillera and the Western Cordillera of the Andes, around 4000 m above sea level. The Aymara population is spread within Bolivia, Peru and Chile. However, the highest concentration of Aymara is found in Bolivia, around Lake Titicaca, the city of El Alto and the city of La Paz (van den Berg 1989).

  2. The Codex Alimentarius is a joint intergovernmental body managed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). It has been the body responsible for implementing the Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme since 1963. “The Codex Alimentarius, or the food code, has become the global reference point for consumers, food producers and processors, national food control agencies and the international food trade. The code has had an enormous impact on the thinking of food producers and processors as well as on the awareness of the end users—the consumers. Its influence extends to every continent, and its contribution to the protection of public health and fair practices in the food trade is immeasurable” (FAO/WHO 2016).

  3. The four municipalities are anonymized by naming them Maya, Paya, Quimsa, and Pusi, Aymara words for one, two, three, and four.

  4. A traditional colorful rectangular piece of cloth used by the indigenous women to carry children and small goods or objects.

Abbreviations

BSE:

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy

E. coli :

Escherichia coli

MSE:

Micro and small enterprise

SENASAG:

Bolivian National Service of Agricultural Safety and Food Safety

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the smallholders, SME owner-managers, and municipality officials for their time and openness. We also highly appreciate the helpful comments and suggestions provided by three anonymous reviewers. This research was funded by Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), under the Project ANDESCROP No. 104. Dan. 8-1203.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Facultad de Agronomía, Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, Héroes del Acre Esq. Landaeta s/n, La Paz, Bolivia

    Geovana Mercado

  2. Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen, Rolighedsvej 23, 1958, Frederiksberg, Denmark

    Geovana Mercado & Carsten Nico Hjortsø

  3. DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L9H 6S9, Canada

    Benson Honig

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  1. Geovana Mercado
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  2. Carsten Nico Hjortsø
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  3. Benson Honig
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Correspondence to Geovana Mercado.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 4, 5, 6 and 7.

Table 4 Documents revised for ideal type behavior from food safety standards
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Table 5 Coding guide used for ideal type behavior from food safety standards and for coding field-level data
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Table 6 Stakeholders interviewed in each municipality
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Table 7 Observation guide for food safety and food related practices
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Mercado, G., Hjortsø, C.N. & Honig, B. Decoupling from international food safety standards: how small-scale indigenous farmers cope with conflicting institutions to ensure market participation. Agric Hum Values 35, 651–669 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-018-9860-x

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