Topic ID No.: 2026-G11
Title of research topic:
Technical regulations in agri-food trade between South Africa and its trade partners: the regulatory heterogeneity in fruits and meat trade
Description:
Technical regulations in agri-food trade between South Africa and its trade partners: the regulatory heterogeneity in fruits and meat trade
Target region or country (if applicable):
South Africa
Topic background information / scientific relevance:
The agri-food regulations have become essential in recent years due to the increasing food safety concerns, which necessitated countries to put in place measures to protect consumers against the inflow of harmful and nutrition-deficient agri-food commodities or products. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has the agreements on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) and the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), which govern the control of harmful, contaminated, dangerous and nutrition-deficient food products from accessing any given market. The regulations to prevent the consumption of sub-standard food products must be scientifically justified based on health hazard and environmental safety; must not be discriminatory in nature, and must not be for national treatment purposes. However, the regulations have been imposed by countries heterogeneously, for different purposes and at different predominant levels, despite the WTO harmonisation and coordination efforts, which often have implications for trade flows. The proliferation of regulation heterogeneity between trade partners orchestrated the barriers to market access (BAMA) that often impact agri-food trade flows.
Moreover, the compliance with the regulations often involves upgrading of facilities, improvement in human, management and institutional capacities that involve high costs to producers. The costs are felt more by producers from the developing countries than those from the advanced countries due to the developmental stage differentials. The technical regulations are the most difficult to comply with among the non-tariff measures (NTM) and could sometimes double the impact of tariffs. Despite the importance of the issues to the South African agri-food sector, only a scanty empirical studies exist that impact policy formulation in this regard. Besides, the impact of the regulation heterogeneity between South Africa and its agri-food trade partners is still an empirical issue.
Research objectives:
- To determine the extent to which the agri-food regulatory heterogeneity impacts South Africa’s fruit market access to its trade partners.
- To investigate the effects of South Africa’s agri-food trade regulatory measures on meat products imports.
- To identify the sources and variants of the regulatory heterogeneity and compute the heterogeneity index for South Africa’s agri-food export markets.
Required skills and qualifications of the applicant:
Research in this area synthesises methods and knowledge from different disciplines for a common understanding. This research cut across public health, food and nutrition security, food safety and knowledge of applied agricultural economics and extensive data analytics. It encompasses ability to involves the ability to understand laws and regulations and the transformation and applications of these regulations, rules and laws in the agri-food trade. The ability to handle micro and macro data is required. Ability to use quantitative analysis software such as Stata, SPSS or R. Using novel data science / machine learning techniqes is expected and a cooperation with data science required. In terms of qualifications, applicants with qualifications in agricultural economics, economics, nutrition, food science, agricultural science, statistics, supply chain management, data science or other related disciplines can apply.
Contact person and institute in charge:
Prof. Dr. Christine Wieck. University of Hohenheim. Department of Agricultural and Food Policy.