Hysterisis in Food Safety Investments

Timothy J. Richards, William Nganje and Ram N. Acharya

No 49888, 110th Seminar, February 18-22, 2008, Innsbruck-Igls, Austria from European Association of Agricultural Economists

Abstract: Concerns regarding the safety and integrity of the fresh produce supply chain are becoming all too common in the media. In 2006, an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 from farms in Central California sickened almost two hundred people and lead to the deaths of three. Estimated costs to the industry ranged from $100 per month to $200 million until spinach sales returned to normal. By some accounts, the spinach industry has yet to recover and may not for years to come. The incident, however, has lead to a host of initiatives from industry officials, legislators and fresh produce retailers to ensure the safety of fresh produce. The necessary technology and best practices knowledge exists, yet some growers have not made the investment required to ensure that such outbreaks do not happen again in the future.

Keywords: Agribusiness; Agricultural and Food Policy; Farm Management; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Industrial Organization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 10
Date: 2008-10
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/49888/files/Richards.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:eaa110:49888

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.49888

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 110th Seminar, February 18-22, 2008, Innsbruck-Igls, Austria from European Association of Agricultural Economists Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().