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Bans, tests, and alchemy: Food safety regulation and the Uganda fish export industry

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Abstract

Contemporary regulation of food safety incorporates principles of quality management and systemic performance objectives that used to characterize private standards. Conversely, private standards are covering ground that used to be the realm of regulation. The nature of the two is becoming increasingly indistinguishable. The case study of the Ugandan fish export industry highlights how management methods borrowed from private standards can be applied to public regulation to achieve seemingly conflicting objectives. In the late 1990s, the EU imposed repeated bans on fish imported from Uganda on the basis of food safety concerns. However, the EU did not provide scientific proof that the fish were actually “unsafe.” Rather, the poor performance of Uganda’s regulatory and monitoring system was used as justification. Only by fixing “the system” (of regulations and inspections) and performing the ritual of laboratory testing for all consignments for export to the EU did the Ugandan industry regain its status as a “safe” source of fish. Yet, gaps and inconsistencies abound in the current Ugandan fish safety management system. Some operations are by necessity carried out as “rituals of verification.” Given the importance of microbiological tests and laboratories in the compliance system, “alchemic rituals” provide an appropriate metaphor. These rituals are part and parcel of a model that reassures the EU fish-eating public that all is under control in Uganda from boat to point of export. As a consequence, actual non-compliance from boat to landing site allows the fishery to survive as an artisanal operation.

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Abbreviations

DFR:

Department for Fisheries Resources

EU:

European Union

FIRRI:

Fishery Resources Research Institute

GHP:

good hygiene practice

GMP:

good manufacturing practice

HACCP:

Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point

ISO:

International Standards Organization

MAAIF:

Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries

UFPEA:

Uganda Fish Processors and Exporters Association

UNBS:

Uganda National Bureau of Standards

UNIDO:

United Nations Industrial Development Organization

WTO:

World Trade Organization

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Acknowledgements

I am indebted to Martin Fowler, Peter Gibbon, Michael Friis Jensen, Jesper Raakjær Nielsen, Lisa Ann Richey, and four anonymous reviewers for useful comments on earlier versions of this article. All mistakes and omissions are fully my own responsibility. The fieldwork upon which this paper is based was funded by the Danish Social Science Research Council (SSF). While in Uganda, I was affiliated with the Economic Policy Research Centre, Makerere University campus, Kampala. I am grateful to both institutions for their support.

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  1. Danish Institute for International Studies, Strandgade 56, 1401, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Stefano Ponte

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Correspondence to Stefano Ponte.

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Stefano Ponte is Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, Copenhagen. His research focuses on the role of standards, regulation and quality conventions in the governance of agro-food value chains, with particular focus on Africa. He is co-author of Trading Down: Africa, Value Chains and the Global Economy and The Coffee Paradox: Global Markets, Commodity Trade and the Elusive Promise of Development.

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Ponte, S. Bans, tests, and alchemy: Food safety regulation and the Uganda fish export industry. Agric Hum Values 24, 179–193 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-006-9046-9

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