Response of local producers to agro-food port rejection : the case of Chinese vegetable exports

This paper analyzes the factors associated with the rejection of products at ports of importer countries and remedial actions taken by producers in China by taking as an example one of the most competitive agro-food products of China: frozen vegetables. This paper provides an overview of the vegetable production and distribution system in China and the way in which China has been participating in exports of these products. Later sections will examine in detail the frozen vegetable sector in China, identify the causes of port rejections, and the actions taken by the Chinese government and by producers, processors and exporters to improve the quality of frozen vegetable exports.

Food quality awareness : cases from shrimp producers in Thailand and vegetable producers in Vietnam

The high number of import rejections of food commodities suggests that producers in exporting countries are not complying with established standards. To understand why this is the case, we explore the behavior of producers and consumers in developing countries. First, we examine the successful transformation of production practices adopted by shrimp producers in Thailand. In support of the dramatic change in practices, we observe an important role played by the public sector in providing a means to visualize chemical residues and to control processes upstream of the supply chain via a registration system and a traceability system called Movement Document. Furthermore, very active information sharing by the private sector contributes to the dissemination of useful technical and market information among producers. We also examine the knowledge and perceptions of consumers with respect to food safety in Vietnam. We find that consumers in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City behave differently toward the third-party certification VietGAP, probably owing to differences in the history of market mechanisms between the two cities.