Food Safety From Consumer Perspective

Consumer perception is one of the aspects from which food safety can be considered. This view of food safety, named in the literature as subjective safety, does not necessarily correspond to objective food safety and is also considered as not being easily influenced by education of consumers. Having that in mind, the first goal of this chapter is to examine different approaches to food safety and the results of previous research dealing with consumer perspective of food safety. Besides giving broad literature review of the topic, the goal of this chapter is to implement Consumer confidence in food safety scale in Serbian consumer research. The validity, reliability, and one-dimensionality of this scale, which consists of optimism and pessimism (two dimensions of confidence), are tested and determinants of different rating on it are examined. The research from 2016 includes 300 participants in the main survey. Finally, starting from profiling consumers with different levels of general confidence in food safety, managerial recommendations are provided.

Retrospective of Economic and Trade Policies Focused on Agricultural Development

The importance of the agricultural sector in the economy of Azerbaijan is high. This sector has always been at the center of economic reforms by the government. This chapter overviews economic and trade policies of the government focused on the development of agricultural production since 1991. Authors carry out analysis of policy changes during separate development stages. The research output presents agricultural policy before the oil boom as mainly devoted to achieving structural transformation from centrally planned economy to the market environment. Within the oil boom period, the government provided substantial fiscal and technical support to the agricultural sector as well as applied tax incentives to farmers but did not pay attention to the transformation from family farming to medium and large-scale production. However, fiscal and macroeconomic challenges of post-oil boom period forced the government to focus on increasing efficiency of the subsidies and incentives and implementation of further agricultural reforms.

Maritime Piracy in Southeast Asia

The costs of the Southeast Asia maritime piracy to the global economy are largely underestimated regarding the issue of the fight against piracy. In particular, the region suffers from severe negative socio-economic impacts due to over-fishing, and the reduction and collapse of the fisheries have led to a widespread loss of income and employment. The attacks on fishers take place regularly in most Southeast Asian countries. Also, in many cases, the pirates are the fishers themselves, and they attack fishers of other nationalities. All those attacks have a serious negative impact on food security in the region by damaging fishing industry and threatening artisanal fishers who risk losing their entire income. Given the fact that large parts of Southeast Asia's fish populations are overfished, fishers have less possibility to avoid areas prone to pirate attacks.

Effects of International Trade Agreements on the Economy and Society of Africa

The aim of this chapter is to give an overview of the trade agreements existing in Nigeria to find out their contribution to the development of the economy. There are several such agreements, however, the authors investigate how much they really operate and serve the wellbeing of people as well as food security and safety. There have been various initiatives in the countries of Africa to develop the agricultural sector, which has employed millions of people and has had a significant role in keeping the population in the rural areas. However, the authors claim that less progress has been achieved than expected. In this chapter, the authors intend to analyze the situation in Africa, with a special focus on Nigeria, to summarize the achievements, and to list up some recommendations on future measures.

Value-Added Agriculture for Central Asian Countries

The goal of this chapter is to analyze the socio-economic role of value-added agriculture (VAA) for Central Asian (CA) countries. The agricultural sector of the region provides raw materials for the food, textile, and leather industry. Cotton, wheat, rice, and fruit (fresh and dried) play an important role in the foreign trade of each CA country. These countries have unrealized potential for storing, freezing, processing, and packaging of the wide nomenclature of fruit, food production, and drinks with the organization of their further exports to perspective markets. Adding value to agricultural products lead to increasing the share of finished goods in export, supplying import-substituting products, improving infrastructure in rural areas, providing new jobs, and growing farmers' income. Based on the analysis, the authors recommend using value-added agriculture for the CA countries by attracting domestic and foreign investments to rural areas, establishing tax incentives, and allocating preferential credits for agribusiness.

New Food Industries Toward a New Level of Sustainable Supply

“Novel foods” indicates all those foods that do not fall within the traditional western diet. The authors underline that there is an important economic potential linked to this new sector. After having introduced the topic by identifying what is meant by new food, food sustainability, and entrepreneurship in this sector, the analysis focuses on the qualitative aspects of novel foods. The authors emphasize the advantages of these sources, their qualities, and the impact on the environment. In this chapter, the authors demonstrate that novel food sources can be a substitute for other food that require production processes, and thus make a big impact on the environment. After figuring out the advantages of novel food sources, the authors analyze some success stories from the companies that already operate in this area. They also investigate existing business models on the novel food market and the way they operate and create wealth. Summarizing the results of their research, the authors underline the economic potential of the new foods exploitation in the Mediterranean area.

Trade Relations Within and Between the Various Emerging Markets of Asia, Latin America, and Africa

This chapter presents the main issues around globalization and its effect on trade relations of emerging markets. Based on extensive literature review the basic globalization trends with corresponding factors are revealed. The author's proposition states that globalization trends (including political, economic, and social globalization) affect trade relations between and within emerging markets. The analysis covers BRIC and CIVETS countries for the period from 1971 to 2013 (based on KOF Index of Globalization) and from 1960 to 2015 for the exports/imports flows. Several statements and propositions regarding trade relations between and within emerging markets are defined. The proposed implications for future research are focused on: exploring emerging markets as a system which variations can be modeled by stochastic processes, and applying network theory to explore the influences of trade liberalizations and gravitational effects of various regional trade agreements on the economic performance of major emerging markets.

The Potential of Traditional Leafy Vegetables for Improving Food Security in Africa

Feeding the quickly growing population in Africa remains a global challenge. As the demand for food increases, climate change, on the other hand, poses more challenges to agricultural productivity, implying that the provision of sufficient quantities and qualities of food is threatened. Traditional leafy vegetables (TLVs) in Africa are resilient to adverse weather conditions and are naturally rich in nutrients including vitamins A & C, iron, protein and other micronutrients. The objective of this chapter is to assess the potential of TLVs improving food security in Africa. TLVs represent a robust local source of food, their consumption is crucial in complementing Africa's diet with micronutrients. TLVs have therefore the potential to play a major role in improving food security and facilitating food sovereignty. Research on seeds, developing seed systems, coupled by preparing and processing methods to TLV products like cakes or flour is needed to increase their consumption, particularly among the young, elite and urban dwellers.

State Support of Agricultural Production in Emerging Countries as a Tool to Ensure Food Security

The chapter examines the practices of state support of agricultural production in various emerging economies in comparison with selected OECD countries. The aim of the research is to discover how agricultural protectionism and support of domestic farmers affect the level of food security on the emerging markets in the conditions of expanding globalization and liberalization of trade in food. The authors focus on the evaluation of the best practices of state support and discovery of opportunities of their utilization on the emerging markets. Content and mechanisms of state regulation are examined based on the data and evaluation methods obtained from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The authors find out that the system of state regulation is one of the key determinants of achieving food security in the conditions of turbulent emerging markets. Both the volume and priority directions of state support of agriculture are determined by financial capacities of emerging economies and current goals of their agrarian policies.

Improvement of Food Security Through Reforming of Domestic Veterinary Service

The chapter gives an overview of current issues of achievement of food security through reforming of veterinary service in the light of the social, ecological, and economic development of the society. The authors analyze certain challenges of food security existing in emerging countries, including expansion of market relations within veterinary service. The results of organizational and economic reforms of veterinary service are assessed on the case of Russia in a form of the survey of the heads of regional veterinary centers. Such issues as governmental and public regulations of quarantine operations and the most dangerous animal diseases are also discussed. In order to improve food security, the authors justify the measures for competition and demand stimulation, smoothing consequences of market imperfections, encouraging veterinarians' efforts on reducing the negative impact of livestock breeding on the environment.