country was involved. From the total amount of 30 SPS disputes 12 have been raised to a
panel. In all dispute panel cases OECD countries are involved [30].
Fourth, the increasing importance of food safety is reflected in border rejections.
Information about border rejections related to food safety and health concerns is rare.
Generally, data are only available for the EU and the US and unfortunately do not specify
value or volume of the rejected quantity. Data for the EU are available since 2001 but for
the US only for 2005/06.
The EU border rejections where available since the introduction of the Rapid Alert
System for Food and Feed (RASFF), which was implemented in 2001. The RASFF collects
two different types of information. First, alert notifications which relate to products
which are already on the market and which present a risk to the consumer. Second,
information notifications relating to products presenting a risk to the consumer but are
not (yet) on the market or for which the risk is limited.
Figure 3: EU information exchanges 1999- 2004
Source: own illustration, [14, 15, 16]
Like depicted in Figure 3, the number of total information exchanges increased strongly
from 698 in 1999 to 5562 in 2004 [16] . In 2004 more than 63% of the alert notifications
originated within the EU, while 79% of the information notifications originated in third
countries. The number of alert notifications rose during the time period from only 97 in
1999 to 691 in 2004. Additionally, information notifications increased during the same
time from 263 to more 1897. The product group with highest numbers of alert or
information notifications during the time between 2000 and 2004 was nuts and nut
products with in average 404 notifications per year, followed by fish, crustaceans and
mollusks (392), meat (173) and fruits and vegetables (161) [14, 15, 16]. The most often
notified third countries between 2002 and 2004 are Iran with 1049 notifications and
China with 443 notifications, followed by Brazil (326), India (290), Thailand (275),
Indonesia (147) and Argentina (99) [14, 15, 16].
For US border rejections data availability is even more limited. An Import Refusals
Report (IRR) only exists since March 2005 6. Also, the IRR does not include certain meat
and poultry products. Nevertheless, Henson and Jaffee (2004) underline that border
rejections for food and feed increased tremendously in the US. The most important
agricultural product groups for border rejections are fishery and seafood products
followed by fruits and vegetables. From the available data, the most often notified
country in the fruit/ vegetable sector (including only the group of non OECD Countries)
is by far Mexico with 886 notifications, followed by the Dominican Republic with 366
and China with 357 notifications. With a large gap these countries are followed by India
(153), Thailand (78) and the Philippines (65). Similarly to the EU border detentions most
notifications come from very few countries. The US notifications include with
Bangladesh only one LDC country and only three countries from Sahara or Sub- Saharan
Africa (Ghana, Cameroon and Ethiopia).
To provide an order of magnitude in which world trade with agro- food products is
affected from border detentions Henson and Jaffee (2004) estimate an amount of $ 3.8
billion for the time period between 2000- 2001 (the estimate is based on official data and
consultations with private traders). Even though they underline that this estimate is
probably an overestimation as the authors have assumed similar levels of rejection for
developed countries and developing countries it still provides a rough idea.
Finally, as a last indicator donor investment in food safety issues is explored. The STDF
is at the same time a financing and a coordination mechanism. It provides grants for
6 Border rejections on agricultural products fall under the responsibility of the US Food and Drug
Administration. Data about US border detentions were published on the FDA's homepage in a
monthly scaling [20] in the Import Refusals Report (IRR).
6