POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES OF INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS SET BY THE CODEX ALIMENTARIUS COMMISSION ON THE SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION OF BANANAS

Rainer Engels, Germanwatch

Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC)

The CAC is a UN-Commission of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). It was founded in the sixties to set international standards for food, with the goal of facilitating international trade and securing health, in that order. It is a commission of the participating governments, meeting every two years.

Codex standards are voluntary and are offered to all countries to be used in the above mentioned sense. Numerous expert sub-committees (for example the Committee on Fresh Fruits and Vegetables, the Committee on Pesticide Residues, the Committee on Packaging and Labelling or the Committee on General Principles) make proposals for standards in their special field.

The proposed standards have to pass a 10 step procedure, alternating between comments from the national governments and negotiations on international level. Most important is step 8, where it can pass the CAC for acceptance. Steps 9 and 10 are only related to the use of the standard for national legislation, which is optional.

The CAC has become more important in the last three years because WTO has defined (without asking) the CAC as the relevant international body for scientific setting of standards. In the case of trade disputes, Codex standards have thus acquired legally binding status which was never intended by the CAC itself. Additionally, the CAC has no adequate decision-making procedures in case of lack of consense.

There are some Codex standards relevant for the sustainable (as well as un-sustainable) production of bananas, they are discussed below.

Relevance

With the granding of the WTO in 1995, trade disputes between countries can be solved by a settlement mechanism which is very powerful. This can strongly affect sustainable banana production in the following way: WTO rules give exact guidelines for technical, sanitary, and phytosanitary measures and standards influencing international trade. Without going into much detail, the hormone dispute between USA and EU shows that it is very difficult for even the EU to establish higher standards than the international ones (established by the Codex Alimentarius Commission).

If a developing country sets standards related to sustainability, for example absence of some pesticides (”dirty dozen”) in bananas, it has to present new scientific data that justify higher standards than the Codex standards for sanitary reasons. This is not an easy task, even in the case of high level technology in the industrialised countries.

Another example is the labelling of bananas from sustainable production. This is related to production and not to the product itself, with severe consequences regarding compliance with WTO rules. If competition advantages are related to this labelling, importing countries without comparable sustainability standards could induce a WTO dispute settlement mechanism with open results.

As international standards for food are proposed by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, it may be worth having a closer look at the standards of the Codex relating to bananas to see if sustainable production could be threatened by those standards.

Codex Standard for Bananas (Alinorm 97/35, Appendix III)

This standard has been finally adopted at the last session of the CAC in June 1997.

This standard provides provisions concerning quality, sizing, tolerances, presentation, marking or labelling, contaminants, and hygiene.

In short: quality meens freedom from any visual damage, pest or deformation, and state of physiological development allowing to reach maturity. Bananas are classified sharply into three classes, Extra, I (superficial defects not exceeding 2 cm2) and II (superficial defects not exceeding 4 cm2).

• Minimum length: 14.0 cm
• Minimum grade: 2.7 cm
• Quality tolerances are 5 to 10 percent only meeting the requirements of the next lower class.
• Size tolerance is 10 percent.

The presentation shall guarantee uniformity and the packaging shall provide a proper protection of the produce.

Labelling is restricted to a very limited list: identification, nature of produce, origin of produce, and commercial identification (e.g. class).

For contaminants, there is only a provision that bananas shall be free from heavy metals in amounts which may represent a hazard to human health, and a provision that bananas shall comply with the maximum residue limits established by Codex.

For hygiene, there is a reference to the Recomended International Code of Practice - General Principles of Food Hygiene (see below) and the provision, that bananas shall be free from microorganisms, parasites or substances originating from microorganisms which may represent a hazard to health.

Conclusion: the Codex Standard for Bananas will eventually be problematic to sustainable production, because it prescribes very narrow tolerances for technical and appearance quality that are potentially difficult to reach.

Maximum Residue Limits

There is a long list of pesticides with MRLs for bananas. These are relevant to sustainable production, because it is very difficult especially for developing countries to establish a zero limit for them with scientific substantiation.

Recommended International Code of Practice for Packaging and Transport of Tropical Fresh Fruit and Vegetables (CAC/RCP 44 - 1995) Vol. 5B, Supp. 1

This Code of Practice is mainly related to transport and not to production. Relevant to sustainable production are the packaging and precooling provisions:

Packaging must withstand rough handling during loading and unloading, compression from the overhead weight of other containers, impact and vibration during transportation, and high humidity. There is a broad list of materials which can be used, as well as packing methods, types of packs, and precooling methods.

Codex General Standard for the Labelling of Prepackaged Foods (World-wide Standard) (Codex Stan 1-1985 (Rev. 1-1991)) Vol. 1, Section 4

An important term in this General Standard is ”Claim”. This means ”any representation which states, suggests or implies that a food has particular qualities relating to is origin, nutritional properties, nature, processing, composition or any other quality”. The claim, as well as other labelling terms, shall not be false, misleading or deceptive or creating an erroneous impression. This does not exclude a labelling ”from sustainable production”, if it is well defined, as for example the European regulation on ecological agriculture.

Recomended International Code of Practice - General Principles of Food Hygiene

This code of practice has no practical relevance in relation to sustainable development in the banana sector.

Conclusion

The main guidelines originating from the CAC which could impair sustainable production of bananas are the MRLs for pesticides and the quality classification.
A possible strategy could be to lobby for a Codex standard for sustainable production. It is not realistic to achieve such a standard, but an open discussion on such a standard would make it much more difficult for opposing governments to win a dispute in the WTO.