Food with a visible face: Traceability and the public promotion of private governance in the Japanese food system

Abstract

The years since 2000 have seen a constant stream of high-profile scandals relating to food safety and food labeling in Japan. One response of Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) has been to promote food traceability as a mechanism to improve food safety and to provide reliable information to consumers about their food. MAFF’s main approach to traceability promotion, however, has not involved making traceability mandatory (as has been done in the EU) but encouraging private companies to adopt it. These actions constitute, I argue, an example of the public promotion of private governance. When viewed against the literature on the private governance of food safety and quality, MAFF’s traceability activities are surprising for three reasons: their forms and extent, the relative lack of interest the Ministry has shown in third-party certification, and the way MAFF has responded to concerns about the safety of imported food by focusing almost entirely on domestic traceability. I also argue, however, that looking at the literature from a Japanese perspective suggests that public encouragement is more central to the rise of private governance in the global agri-food system than is usually appreciated.