Exporters' perception of private standards - a case study

As agriculture has been multulaterally disciplined new challenges arise such as indiscriminate and unjustified use of non-tariff measures by countries, and the rise of private regulation on international trade by the establishment of private standards. The importance of private standards in the agricultural international trade has been growing since the 90s, with an increase in the number of private standards in the last decade in various sectors, particularly in the food sector. Thus, the main objective of this paper is to evaluate the perception of Brazilian chicken meat exporters on private standards, as they are the world´s largest exporters of chicken meat. The methodology involves the development of a questionaire to be answered by Brazilian chicken meat exporters, as well as interviews. Descriptive statistics, as well as factorial and classificatory analysis, are used to jointly evaluate responses in order to understand the perception that producers/exporters have on private standards. Overall, the results point to the increasing requirments to comply with private standards by exporters, especially those related to food safety and food quality. Exporters indicate the need for differentiation by customers as the main factor behind the proliferation of private standards. They generally view the standards as being non-restrictive to trade, but leading to increased costs and management complexity, they also agree that private standards grants differentiation for those who comply. Regarding the perception of increased prices and margins derived from the fulfillment of private standards, exporters do not have a common or overall perception for the sector as this varies according to the characteristics of each company. The survey results also show lthat exporters have little knowledge on multilateral discussions and require that sectorial organizations and government agencies should work along side for a better understanding and management of the phenomenon.