Regional Standards Programme

ComMark has been engaged to implement the Regional Standards Programme (RSP) for the Department for International Development (DFID) in Southern Africa from 2006 to 2010. The objective of the RSP is to help SADC countries and firms to meet international food quality and safety standards for agri-business products.

The RSP tackles the issue of agricultural standards in a holistic way, and has three main components:

The Private Standards Innovation Fund

The Private Standards Innovation Fund assists Southern African agri-business firms meet the range of private standards international buyers require. The Innovation Fund awards grants to regional producer groups, private firms, industry associations and agencies to assist them to overcome specific certification or standards issues that prevent them from supplying high-value, formal markets such as international and regional supermarket chains. The fund aims to identify opportunities to increase exports of specific products where standards compliance can significantly enhance market access and raise producer incomes. By promoting compliance with these increasingly stringent quality and safety requirements the Innovation Fund is hoping to enhance the demand for Southern African products. The Fund also encourages commercial entities to experiment with creative solutions to overcome the barriers associated with standards compliance by providing them with a financial incentive to offset some of the associated risks and costs.

What are private standards?
Private food safety and quality standards in developed countries have become a global phenomenon. These voluntary standards are product and production process requirements set by the buyers of agriculture and food products. They operate alongside compulsory public regulatory systems, but in terms of market access and access to the shelves of leading supermarkets in rich countries, they are virtually mandatory. As a result, countries in southern Africa face increasing constraints in exporting their food products to markets in Europe and the US. To ensure continued access to these important export markets, producers have no alternative but to make the necessary investments to comply with the requirements of private food safety and quality standards. While these standards are a constraint, they also represent an opportunity for Southern African firms to distinguish themselves as high-quality reliable suppliers that are able to meet and exceed the food safety, environmental and social standards set by their buyers.

Why are private standards a problem?
Meeting private standards is a challenge for Southern African firms for a number of reasons. First there are a large number of different standards schemes such as GLOBALGAP, Fair Trade and firm-specific standards such as Tesco's Natures Choice. Second, the scope and stringency of these different schemes change and increase rapidly, which requires producers to have ongoing access to information about private standards requirements and continuously make investments in standards infrastructure and systems. For smallholder producers, these costs are especially prohibitive. Constraints that smallholders face in meeting standards and demonstrating compliance through certification include:

• Low levels of education make it hard to understand and adopt the requirements of private standards
• Technical assistance is needed to improve quality, safety, productivity, management, record keeping and hygiene practices
• Moving from a production to a market-oriented mindset can prove challenging
• The high supervision and monitoring costs of certification are often prohibitive.

The Low Income Pilot: Supporting SADC Governments to Better Service Agricultural Producers, Exporters and International Buyers

While the private sector has to meet the sanitary and phytosanitary standards (SPS) requirements demanded by their buyers, governments have to carry out important regulatory, surveillance and management functions to strengthen and support this compliance. Furthermore, many importing countries require that a designated public sector ‘competent authority' be in place to perform certain enforcement functions. The public sector is thus the central pivot on which SPS management hinges.

In many developing countries, the capacity of governments to serve as this pivot is absent. These countries often lack the necessary hard and soft infrastructure such as laboratories, legislation and human resources to be able to support the private sector and comply with importing countries' standards requirements.

This component of the RSP focuses on helping low-income SADC country governments such as Mozambique to develop their infrastructure and systems to better support their producers on standards issues. This also provides international buyers with the assurances that the necessary standards are being met. The product focus here is the fisheries sector and horticultural products.

The objective of the low-income pilot component of the RSP is to demonstrate that if you provide a low-income SADC country with the means to develop its enabling environment for standards compliance, this will result in an increase in exports and a concomitant reduction in poverty.

Improving the participation of SADC countries in International Standard Setting Bodies

Standards which govern trade in agriculture and food products originate from a variety of sources. One important source of standards is the internationally agreed mandatory standards established by international standards setting bodies (ISSBs). With respect to communicable diseases in plants and animals, these are regulated under the WTO Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Measures. The two bodies responsible for these are the International Plant Protection convention (IPPC) and the International Office for Epizootics (OIE). In the case of food safety, these are also subject to international deliberations, under a joint FAO/ WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission that issues guidelines and codes of practice.

As part of the RSP Inception Phase, a detailed review of SADC countries' participation in these various international bodies was undertaken. In the case of the last eight Codex meetings held over the past two years, the average number of SADC countries attending was 3.

The objective of this component of the RSP is to develop southern Africa's long-term capacity to meaningfully participate and contribute to these international standard setting bodies and processes. Interviews conducted in the region and with the secretariats of ISSBs have confirmed that where developing countries participate in the work of ISSBs, they are not only better able to comply with new standards but also ensure improved international harmonisation with their own domestic standards.

ComMark works with the Southern Africa Confederation of Agricultural Unions (SACAU) and other organisations to ensure that government and business actively participate in the various standards bodies.

Requests for proposal(s)

Agriculture, Food Miles and Climate Change:

In 2006, the Department for International Development (DFID) engaged ComMark to manage the implementation of its four-year Regional Standards Programme (RSP) in Southern Africa. The goal of the RSP is to reduce poverty in SADC countries by increasing the incomes of those engaged in high value agricultural production. It is anticipated that improving SADC countries’ ability to meet food quality and safety standards for these products will facilitate greater international market access, reduce price competition, stimulate investment and mitigate risk – leading to increased exports.