The Governance Implications of Private Standards Initiatives in Agri-food Chains (also known as POPS, Politics of Private Standards)
Funding body: ESRC-DFID, Grant reference RES 167-25-0195
Duration: 2007-2010 (but with outputs still coming)
People involved:
Principal investigator and key contact: Anne Tallontire
Co-investigators: Valerie Nelson, NRI, University of Greenwich Adrienne Martin, NRI, University of Greenwich Maggie Opondo, University of Nairobi
Summary
Focusing on fresh vegetables and cut flowers from Kenya, the project explored what private standards and initiatives mean for 'governance' or the exercise of power. It explored the power relations amongst different groups participating in or excluded from Private Standards Initiatives (PSIs) with a view to identifying which actors were most powerful and how roles were changing. The powerful role of retailers and exporters in PSIs has been highlighted, but also how new actors such as donors, NGOs (international and national), researchers and auditors have played a role in shaping these initiatives. We showed how smallholders and workers have been effectively excluded from the debates and how NGOs etc that seek to speak for smallholders and workers have also been constrained. The dominant narratives of retailers have shaped views of potential solutions, whilst local priorities and alternative narratives have been sidelined or remain unarticulated. Our fieldwork in Kenya demonstrated the limited ability of PSIs to instigate transformative change. There have been some improvements in how labour rights and good agricultural practices standards have been implemented and some changes to standards and audits reflect local conditions, particularly on food safety. However, the highly political nature of private standards and related institutions and the power inequalities involved means that the agenda is largely about how to ensure compliance rather than how to institutionalize improvements on farms.
Our work also shows that it is fruitful to consider standards in a systemic fashion - too often standards are treated as individual entities separated from their context - rather than studied as part of a process of power struggles and local context.