Food PolicyPub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102814
Lara Tinacci , Sara Rota Nodari , Alessio Vitali , Gaetano Liuzzo , Ivan Corti , Andrea Armani
{"title":"Analysis of the Italian regulatory framework on the welfare of aquatic organisms, with a focus on live crustaceans","authors":"Lara Tinacci , Sara Rota Nodari , Alessio Vitali , Gaetano Liuzzo , Ivan Corti , Andrea Armani","doi":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102814","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102814","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The European Union regulatory framework for the welfare of aquatic organisms (AOW), live seafood (LSW) and live crustaceans intended for human consumption (LCW) is still in its nascent stages. Member States have tackled the subject with different regulatory approach, represented in Italy, by municipal regulations. The present study was designed to provide an overview of the municipal regulations pertaining to AOW, LSW, and LCW issued in Italy to date. A search was conducted on Google from December 2023 to March 2024 using specific keywords. The analysis of the regulations entailed the scrutiny of provisions concerning AOW and LSW during transport, maintenance, display and, additionally, LCW during stunning and slaughter. A total of 771 municipal regulations on animal welfare issued from 2001 to 2023 were collected. A total of 542 provisions concerning AOW were identified, while 234 and 181 provisions also addressed LSW and LCW, respectively. As regards LCW, specific regulations included the prohibition of the claws banding (85.1%), slaughter prior to sale (59.1%), and boiling of live crustaceans (33.1%). Conversely, the obligation to slaughter before sale (12.1%), after stunning (10.5%) and out of sight of the consumer (5%) were reported. The divergent and generally not scientifically-based nature of the regulations suggests limitations of the Italian approach in AOW, LSW and LCW management. In anticipation of the risk assessment-based revision of EU legislation on AOW, the results provide an updated basis for the drafting of national technical guidelines, including species-specific control checklists, for the monitoring of LCW along the entire supply chain.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":321,"journal":{"name":"Food Policy","volume":"131 ","pages":"Article 102814"},"PeriodicalIF":6.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143138890","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Food PolicyPub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102813
Bin Wu , Cong Cao , Simon Mosey , Tim Daniell , Peter Noy , Yizhe Cui , Min Rose , Jonathan Snape
{"title":"How does global agricultural research and innovation cooperation influence agricultural R&I system transformation in the South? Evidence from UK-China cooperation","authors":"Bin Wu , Cong Cao , Simon Mosey , Tim Daniell , Peter Noy , Yizhe Cui , Min Rose , Jonathan Snape","doi":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102813","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102813","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The need for agri-food system transformation has sparked extensive debates on reconfiguring the agricultural research and innovation system (ARIS) to tackle the multidimensional and interwoven challenges present across geographies and scales. This paper highlights the emergence of China, India and Brazil, and their increasing influence on ARIS in the South. We conceptualise global agricultural R&I cooperation (ARIC) to examine how the changing nature of the cooperation between major players from the North and the South influences ARIS transformation in the South. We propose a local–global nexus (LGN) framework to reveal multiple processes involving researchers and non-academic actors for joint knowledge production and social impact across scales. We explore LGN’s feasibility through a case study of UK-China cooperation to illustrate the necessity and key factors influencing the participation of non-academic actors including smallholder farmers in ARIC. Evidence for this paper comes from a combination of primary data collected from 52 British scientists, representatives of funding agencies and entrepreneurs regarding their experiences, opinions and perceptions of ARIC through bilateral cooperation, and second sources. This paper contributes to ARIS transformation debates from three perspectives. First, it sheds new light on transformative innovation debates by adding an ARIC element for ARIS transformation in the South. Second, it enriches a “pathways approach” by delineating four pathways of ARIC, as well as top-down and bottom-up processes across various scales. Third, it offers an LGN framework for ARIC research to address the complexity, diversity and opportunities for ARIS transformation towards sustainable and equitable agri-food systems in the South.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":321,"journal":{"name":"Food Policy","volume":"131 ","pages":"Article 102813"},"PeriodicalIF":6.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143521081","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Food PolicyPub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102830
Marta Marson , Donatella Saccone
{"title":"The effect of food price upsurges on income inequality: The richest win and the poorest lose","authors":"Marta Marson , Donatella Saccone","doi":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102830","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102830","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>From a theoretical perspective, the ultimate effect that food price shocks may have on inequality is ambiguous. Food price shocks, indeed, generate both winners and losers and their overall impact on income distribution cannot be predicted a priori but depends on the relative magnitude of different effects. From the empirical perspective, however, the link between international food prices and income distribution is largely understudied. The present paper tries to fill the gap by analyzing a large sample of 126 developing and developed countries observed in the period 1990–2020 and studying how food price shocks are associated with changes in income distribution. The heterogeneity of the effect is investigated by means of interaction terms accounting for the food trade balance of countries and the structure of the agricultural sector, coming to three main conclusions. First, upsurging food prices increase inequality by affecting the relative income of the poorest 50 percent of the population to the advantage of richer people, especially of the richest among the rich. Second, this effect is relevant for developing countries while no clear findings emerge for high-income countries. Third, the disequalizing effect of soaring international food prices is not uniform in developing countries but largely depends on their food trade balance and some structural attributes of their agricultural sector. In this regard, food policy must reduce the domestic transmission of price shocks to poor consumers while strengthening farmers’ productive capacity and ability to cope with the shocks through better access to land, capital and productive resources.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":321,"journal":{"name":"Food Policy","volume":"131 ","pages":"Article 102830"},"PeriodicalIF":6.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143510806","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Food PolicyPub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102796
Jonathan Brooks , Eugenio Diaz-Bonilla
{"title":"How helpful are the “hidden costs of food systems” numbers?","authors":"Jonathan Brooks , Eugenio Diaz-Bonilla","doi":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102796","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2024.102796","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The “hidden costs of foods systems” calculations reported by the Food and Land Use Coalition, the Food System Economic Commission and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization may not provide helpful policy guidance for the transformation of food systems for both economic and political reasons. Economically, the hidden costs numbers exclude countervailing social benefits which imply unavoidable trade-offs across policy objectives. They also aggregate costs that are fundamentally different in their economic character and require different policy approaches, while including some costs that are not attributable to food systems at all. Politically, the headline numbers risk impeding transformative change because they identify food systems participants – particularly farmers –in terms of the damage they inflict while ignoring critical benefits they confer, and implicate them in social failings for which they are not primarily responsible. However, the hidden costs numbers can be useful if integrated into a more balanced assessment of the performance of food systems. Such an approach could support a positive agenda which engages the actors whose contributions will be indispensable.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":321,"journal":{"name":"Food Policy","volume":"131 ","pages":"Article 102796"},"PeriodicalIF":6.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143138984","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Food PolicyPub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102803
Di Marcantonio Federica , Jesus Barreiro-Hurle , Luisa Menapace , Colen Liesbeth , Dessart François J. , Ciaian Pavel
{"title":"Much ado about nothing? An empirical analysis of consumer behaviour in the presence of ‘dual food quality’","authors":"Di Marcantonio Federica , Jesus Barreiro-Hurle , Luisa Menapace , Colen Liesbeth , Dessart François J. , Ciaian Pavel","doi":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102803","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102803","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Marketing food products with slightly different compositions as identical across countries is a common practice in the food industry. While food companies argue that different versions reflect taste preferences, some Central and Eastern European consumers allege that multinational companies sell lower quality products using the same brand name and packaging as in Western European countries. The political attention gathered by this practice, exemplified by the dual food quality (DFQ) debate in the European Union (EU), has largely neglected how the presence of DFQ affects consumers’ purchase decisions. This study aims to help fill this gap. Additionally, it examines the impact of a policy intervention consisting of a ‘made for’ claim and the role of the brand name on consumer choices. Through online discrete-choice experiments and laboratory tasting and rating experiments in six EU countries, no systematic support is found for either the industry’s or the consumers’ arguments. Results also indicate that a policy requiring consumers to be informed about the destination market of different versions would increase consumers’ valuation of domestic products, while at the same time improving transparency and avoiding misleading consumers.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":321,"journal":{"name":"Food Policy","volume":"131 ","pages":"Article 102803"},"PeriodicalIF":6.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143138886","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Food PolicyPub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102802
Amber Steyaert , Thomas Kuyper , Joost Dessein , Charlotte Prové
{"title":"Urban food policy councils as politicized spaces: The case of Arusha, Tanzania","authors":"Amber Steyaert , Thomas Kuyper , Joost Dessein , Charlotte Prové","doi":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102802","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102802","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Informal food vendors constitute a significant portion of the workforce in Arusha, Tanzania, and play a crucial role in the local food system. Despite their importance, these vendors lack political and social agency, resulting in their underrepresentation in decision-making processes. This study explores the potential of urban food policy councils (UFPCs) to support these vendors, focusing on the Arusha Sustainable Food System Platform. Recently, the platform faced a government directive to relocate street vendors without their participation. This case study examines the platform’s response to this directive.</div><div>Using a conceptual framework that positions UFPCs as politicized spaces, centered on social justice, epistemic justice, and empowerment, and an analytical framework based on critical governance, this research employs document analysis, in-depth interviews, focus groups with market vendors, and participative observations of platform meetings and events.</div><div>The findings reveal that the ASFSP refrained from engaging with vendors due to several factors: a focus on food safety concerns overshadowing social justice concerns, a preference for formality that excludes informal actors, and limitations imposed by the city council, with relocation decisions made at the national level beyond the platform’s influence. Nevertheless, the platform shows significant promise in addressing democratic deficits in Arusha’s local food systems, but further steps are necessary for it to function effectively as a politicized space. Its transformative potential is contingent upon being embedded within a broader democratic context.</div><div>The framework of UFPCs as politicized spaces offers a possibility to connect the food democracy debate and UFPC literature. Additionally, the study offers practical insights for the platform and similar councils to improve the inclusion of street vendors in decision-making processes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":321,"journal":{"name":"Food Policy","volume":"131 ","pages":"Article 102802"},"PeriodicalIF":6.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143138985","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Food PolicyPub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102824
Maxime Roche
{"title":"Can differentiated value-added tax rates promote healthier diets? The case of Costa Rica","authors":"Maxime Roche","doi":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102824","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102824","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In February 2023, Costa Rica reformed its basic value-added tax basket on which a reduced rate applies to “guarantee a balanced diet”. This paper assesses <em>ex-ante</em> the impact of the reform on nutrient availability and household spending across income groups. Price elasticities are estimated using pooled National Household Income and Expenditure Survey data and a two-step censored quadratic almost ideal demand system model accounting for price and total expenditure endogeneity. Nutritional information is derived from food composition tables. Food items are grouped by processing level as a proxy to explore differences in own- and cross-price effects between ‘healthier’ and ‘less healthy’ items. The demand for ultra-processed sweet and savoury foods is price-inelastic (−0.74 and −0.81, respectively). Lower-income households’ demand is more price-sensitive. The reform applies a reduced rate to a significant number of ultra-processed savoury food items and is associated with an increase in household purchases of calories (0.7%), sugar (0.4%), and saturated fat (1.2%). A counterfactual scenario with a basic tax basket defined based on the Pan American Health Organization nutrient profile model criteria is associated with the largest reductions in calories (−0.2%), sodium (−1.0%), and saturated fat (−0.6%), with higher benefits for lower-income households. It results in minor decreases in household spending (−0.2%). While an increasing number of countries contemplate the taxation of foods high in fat, salt, or sugar, Costa Rica is unique in mandating the consideration of nutritional aspects in determining value-added tax rates. However, the recently adopted basic tax basket may not fulfil this potential.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":321,"journal":{"name":"Food Policy","volume":"131 ","pages":"Article 102824"},"PeriodicalIF":6.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143474563","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Food PolicyPub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102826
Gavin Long , Georgiana Nica-Avram , John Harvey , Evgeniya Lukinova , Roberto Mansilla , Simon Welham , Gregor Engelmann , Elizabeth Dolan , Kuzivakwashe Makokoro , Michelle Thomas , Edward Powell , James Goulding
{"title":"Machine learning on national shopping data reliably estimates childhood obesity prevalence and socio-economic deprivation","authors":"Gavin Long , Georgiana Nica-Avram , John Harvey , Evgeniya Lukinova , Roberto Mansilla , Simon Welham , Gregor Engelmann , Elizabeth Dolan , Kuzivakwashe Makokoro , Michelle Thomas , Edward Powell , James Goulding","doi":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102826","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102826","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Deprivation pushes people to choose cheap, calorie-dense foods instead of nutritious but expensive alternatives. Diseases, such as obesity, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes, resulting from these poor dietary choices place a significant burden on public health systems. Measuring nutritional insecurity is difficult to achieve at scale and so the ability to study the relationship between nutritional outcomes and deprivation at a national level is very challenging. This makes it difficult to understand the effect of new policies or track changes over time. To address this challenge, we develop a machine learning approach using massive anonymised transactional data (4 million members and 2.5 billion transactions) in partnership with the retailer The Co-operative Group UK. We engineer a series of variables related to obesogenic diets, including a new measure called ‘Calorie-oriented purchasing’. These variables help illustrate how large-scale transactional data can discriminate between neighbourhoods most affected by deprivation and childhood obesity. Through comparative assessment of machine learning approaches, we find better performance from tree-based models (Random Forest, XGBoost) with the best-achieving accuracy of 0.88 for predicting deprivation and an accuracy of 0.79 for childhood obesity. Calorie-oriented purchasing emerges as a robust predictor of deprivation and childhood obesity at the census area level. Results show this approach can help summarise nutritional insecurity, and support its spatio-temporal monitoring. We conclude with policy implications and recommend retailers adopt new measures for measuring national nutrition insecurity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":321,"journal":{"name":"Food Policy","volume":"131 ","pages":"Article 102826"},"PeriodicalIF":6.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143510807","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Food PolicyPub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102817
Qingxiao Li , Jinyang Yang , Xiaoli Yang , Endong Mu
{"title":"Decompose food price disparities in China: Evidence from wholesale markets","authors":"Qingxiao Li , Jinyang Yang , Xiaoli Yang , Endong Mu","doi":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102817","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102817","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines regional variations in food prices in China and the underlying factors contributing to these disparities. Leveraging administrative data from agricultural wholesale markets, we construct spatial price indices and reveal consistent monthly trends in disparities. Using our proposed decomposition method, we identify livestock products, particularly beef and pork, as the main components driving regional food price differences. We examine the role of local supply–demand factors in explaining spatial food price variations and find that local gasoline prices are a significant contributor to food price disparity. A one percent increase in local gasoline prices leads to a 0.6 percent rise in local food prices and exacerbates spatial food price disparities by 0.5–1.0 percent. These results highlight the importance of considering transportation costs and regional supply–demand dynamics in understanding food price variations across regions. Our findings have implications for policy aiming to address regional food price disparities and ensure food affordability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":321,"journal":{"name":"Food Policy","volume":"131 ","pages":"Article 102817"},"PeriodicalIF":6.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143138988","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Food PolicyPub Date : 2025-01-31DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102815
Catherine Ragasa , Hiroyuki Takeshima , Seth Asante , Mulubrhan Amare , Ning Ma , Opeyemi Olanrewaju , Jan Duchoslav
{"title":"Maize yield responsiveness and profitability of fertilizer: New survey evidence from six African countries","authors":"Catherine Ragasa , Hiroyuki Takeshima , Seth Asante , Mulubrhan Amare , Ning Ma , Opeyemi Olanrewaju , Jan Duchoslav","doi":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102815","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102815","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Enhancing maize productivity growth is pivotal for revolutionizing the agrifood system in Africa, with inorganic fertilizer serving as a fundamental input for catalyzing this progress. However, concerns are mounting about the low and decreasing yield response and profitability of inorganic fertilizer use, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. This study aims to refine yield response and profitability models by incorporating recent data from nationally representative and panel datasets spanning six countries. Most countries exhibited low nitrogen yield responsiveness (4–7 kg), while Ghana and Uganda showed higher responsiveness (15–20 kg) per additional 1 kg of nitrogen. Analysis of fertilizer-to-maize price ratios from 2010 to 2023 showed a downward trend, with spikes in 2022 in Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, and Tanzania. Overall, except for those years, the data suggest a trend of increasingly favorable price incentives for fertilizer use. Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda experienced declines in the fertilizer-to-maize price ratio. Increasing inorganic fertilizer use would be profitable in Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, and Uganda at current market prices, but not in Malawi or Tanzania. Subsidies in Malawi and Tanzania have boosted profitability, but these may not be necessary in Ghana, Nigeria, or Uganda, which already have favorable price incentives; Malawi could benefit by substantially reducing its 80 percent subsidy while maintaining decent price incentives and farm profits. The paper proposes policy options based on factors influencing yield responsiveness and potential improvements drawn from new modeling and synthesis of the literature.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":321,"journal":{"name":"Food Policy","volume":"133 ","pages":"Article 102815"},"PeriodicalIF":6.8,"publicationDate":"2025-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143099368","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}