Abstract
Worldwide, food supplies often contain unavoidable contaminants, many of which adversely affect health and hence are subject to regulations of maximum tolerable levels in food. These regulations differ from nation to nation, and may affect patterns of food trade. We soughtto determine whether there is an association between nations' food safety regulations and global food trade patterns, with implications for public health and policymaking. We developed a network model of maize trade around the world. From maize import/export data for 217 nations from 2000–2009, we calculated basic statistics on volumes of trade; then examined how regulations of aflatoxin, a common contaminant of maize, are similar or different between pairs of nations engaging in significant amounts of maize trade. Globally, market segregation appears to occur among clusters of nations. The United States is at the center of one cluster; European countries make up another cluster with hardly any maize trade with the US; and Argentina, Brazil, and China export maize all over the world. Pairs of nations trading large amounts of maize have very similar aflatoxin regulations: nations with strict standards tend to trade maize with each other, while nations with more relaxed standards tend to trade maize with each other. Rarely among the top pairs of maize-trading nations do total aflatoxin standards (standards based on the sum of the levels of aflatoxins B1, B2, G1, and G2) differ by more than 5 µg/kg. These results suggest that, globally, separate maize trading communities emerge; and nations tend to trade with other nations that have very similar food safety standards.
Highlights
Multiple nations worldwide have set food safety standards for maximum tolerable levels of certain contaminants in food, for the purpose of protecting public health
We developed a network model to represent the global trade patterns of maize from nation to nation. We examined these maize trade patterns as function ofaflatoxin regulations in maize, with a focus on regulations for maize intended for human consumption, for each nation
Wu [9] estimated a much lower loss to African nations from the EU aflatoxin regulations, and hypothesized that this was because food trade patterns between Africa and the EU were not on such a large scale as estimated by [12]. These food trade patterns will have a very important impact on the sustainability of nations that rely upon food exports for their market economies, and may have impacts for global public health. It is for the purpose of answering these questions, and exploring the nature of food safety regulations and potential impacts on food trade and global health, that we have developed a social network model of global maize trade to facilitate understanding of this association
Summary
Multiple nations worldwide have set food safety standards for maximum tolerable levels of certain contaminants in food, for the purpose of protecting public health. These standards, in turn, have important impacts on world food trade. Do nations with strict food safety standards tend to trade more with each other, while nations with more relaxed food safety standards tend to trade with each other? We developed a network model to represent the global trade patterns of maize from nation to nation. We examined these maize trade patterns as function ofaflatoxin regulations in maize, with a focus on regulations for maize intended for human consumption, for each nation
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