Experiencing the Food Safety Regime: Compliance, Market Access, and Coping Strategies of Indian Fishery Secto

This paper has attempted to capture the impact of food safety standards on seafood exports from India. The research issues contemplated in the study are: (i) quantifying the trade effects on fishery exports from India due to the evolving stringency of international food safety standards, (ii) structural changes of export dynamics in the standards regime, and (iii) analysing the implications of standards-related compliance on participation of actors in the export value chain. A unidirectional gravity model (for the period 1998–2013) has been used, wherein, India's fishery exports to 34 countries has been modelled by taking food safety standard as the key independent variable. The structural changes in export dynamics are captured through the constant market share analysis and export market diversification analysis. To understand the forms of coordination in the seafood export value chain, snowball sampling technique has been adopted to select the key informants of the value chain. The study has revealed that the regulations are trade restrictive, and the standards regime is causing a major restructuring of the existing value chain. It is inevitable that India should elevate the national system for testing, certification and laboratory accreditation so as to be at par with the prevailing international trade regulatory safety parameters.