31 October 2000

EU Food Safety Rule May Cost Africa $700 Million In Trade

By Merle D. Kellerhals, Jr.
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- The European Union's (EU) use of the so-called "precautionary principle" in food safety standards, widely criticized as excessively rigorous, may have cost nine developing African nations more than $700 million annually in lost farm trade exports, according to a new World Bank Group study.

The study, entitled "Saving Two in a Billion: A Case Study to Quantify the Trade Effect of European Food Safety Standards on African Exports," recently released in Washington, is one of the first to examine the cost of health standards on international trade.

The study examines EU food safety policy based on the so-called precautionary principle, which justifies placing restrictions on food imports regardless of scientifically identified risks to health.

The study, prepared by three World Bank Development Research Group researchers, examines a 1998 EU regulation -- based on the precautionary principle -- that limits the amount of aflatoxins in imported food. Aflatoxins are a fungus-like substance that has been identified in maize [corn] and maize products, groundnuts and groundnuts products, cottonseed, milk, and tree nuts such as Brazil nuts, pecans, pistachio nuts, and walnuts. Certain levels of aflatoxins in food has been linked to liver cancer.

The study said an EU regulation -- which became effective in 2000 -- set a precautionary limit for importing foods containing aflatoxins that is higher than the current regulation set by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, which sets international food safety standards, the World Health Organization (WHO), or the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The study argues that the difference between the EU limits and the Codex limits would save two lives for every 1,000 million people. The EU has a population of approximately 380 million.

European countries are often able to shift food imports from African nations where food safety may be a concern to others, the study found, but it also raises the food prices paid by EU consumers. For the African nations, they may not be able to find alternative markets outside Europe due to their high dependency on the European food market, the study said.

The food safety rule would reduce by 64 percent imports of cereals, dried fruit and nuts from Chad, Egypt, Gambia, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, costing more than $700 million in lost revenue, the study said.

The research, supported by the United Kingdom's Department for International Development, also found that the method used in analyzing food products for aflatoxins that is used by the EU would further reduce African exports compared with testing methods used elsewhere, including the United States.

The study is available on the Internet at http://www1.worldbank.org/wbiep/trade/new_standards.html.

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