Wheat consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is increasing rapidly, faster than any other major food grain. Between 2000 and 2009, per capita wheat consumption in SSA increased at a rate of 0.35 kilogram (kg)/year, outpacing maize and rice. Total wheat consumption increased by nearly 650,000...

Food legumes play an important and diverse role in the farming systems and in the diets of poor people around the world. They are ideal crops for simultaneously achieving three developmental goals in targeted population—reducing poverty, improving human health and nutrition, and enhancing...

This paper examins the question of revisiting the imposition of existing trade barriers in one case of an evolving marketplace – when a traditional food product is altered to provide, or discovered to have, human health benefits that increases their value to consumers. In other words, the food...

It is now common for producers (economic protectionism), consumers and social advocates (humanitarian motives) to urge for the inclusion of labour standards in international trade agreements. In spite of this, there has been little empirical work to determine whether low labour standards lead to...

Food safety regulations limit trade in bioproducts. Every country, however, has a duty to protect its citizens from food safety hazards. If risks are increasing under an existing food safety system then a strengthening of the regulatory regime can be justified, with the inevitable negative...

Trade in genetically modified (GM) products remains a major issue in agricultural trade policy. In particular, the European Union has sought to deny market access to GM-products. In the wake of a WTO case brought by Canada and the US, among others, against an import ban imposed on genetically...

The regulatory regime for contamination permits the imposition of import bans with neither a scientific justification nor a risk assessment. No scientific assessment of Triffid flax was done prior to the import ban. The import regime put in place to deal with the contamination of flax with the...

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) which was signed into law in January, 2011 represents a major initiative to improve food safety in the US. The legislation mandates the US Food and Drug Administration with developing a regulatory system to implement the Act. As yet, the full effect of...