Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
since the late 1980s. Historically, many of these food producers have been made
dependent on export markets, often with negative outcomes - including Southern
import dependence, food insecurity, hunger and poverty (McMihael, 2004). Today,
they are once again facing pressures to 'upgrade' from traditional forms of agricul-
ture in order to participate in global trade, leading to an intensification and diversi-
fication of smallholder farming towards high-value horticultural crops (and increas-
ingly to the production of agro-fuels, see, for example, McMihael, this volume).
African smallholders have also had to extend their role in the supply hain, often en-
gaging in cleaning, sizing, trimming, and paking (i.e. value-adding), thus integrat-
ing new actors - namely women - as employees in highly gendered and inequitable
globalized supply hains (see Barrientos and Dolan, 2006).
As a development strategy, this shift towards export-oriented agriculture in
Africa has been implemented with the aim of improving smallholder incomes and
livelihood sustainability through increased market access. Certification to gov-
ernance instruments suh as organic, fair and ethical trade is positioned as crucial for
inserting African smallholders into export markets in ways that address the power
diferentials and injustices whih have historically haracterised globalizing markets.
While these shemes emphasize the important role of trade in improving the liveli-
difficult group to regulate via 'one size fits all' standards and regulations. Smallhold-
ers may or may not belong to farming cooperatives, national labour unions or other
collective bodies, and may not be protected by national labour laws (Ethical Trad-
ing Initiative, 2005). As suh, smallholders are among the most vulnerable actors in
global food networks, despite the potential of smallholder farming to solve problems
of local food security and environmental degradation.
here is muh evidence suggesting that standards may work against the interests
of these producers. In Africa, the high costs of accreditation to certifications are
often borne by producers, rather than supermarkets and/or exporters; and in cir-
cumstances where exporters and/or other stakeholders do cover certification costs,
smallholders' certification is tied to these actors, creating new forms of dependency.
This creates a barrier for many smallholder producers to participate in these food
networks (see Borot de Batisti
et al
., 2009). Across the literature, the story seems
to be the same: while some Southern participants in these emerging standards and
accreditation systems have benefited in some labour-related aspects, these are ex-
tremely dependent on commodity, country context, employment status, and gender
