Food Safety and Contract Edamame: The Geopolitics of the Vegetable Trade in East Asia

Abstract

This paper examines how the proliferation of the new Japanese food‐safety regime has influenced the edamame industries of China and Taiwan—the two largest producers of edamame beans in the world. Edamame is not only a popular cuisine in the Asia‐Pacific region, it is also responsible for the largest‐scale frozen vegetable flow in East Asia. This study addresses how the interaction between geopolitical realities and the subcontracting of edamame crops has created an access regime governing the vegetable trade in East Asia. By addressing the complexity of the geopolitics related to contract farming, this study considers the extent to which the Japanese edamame trade has subordinated edamame producers in multiple places in Asia, while Taiwan's edamame industry has positioned itself to obtain preferential access to the edamame flow between Japan, Taiwan, and China.

Key words:

• contract farming
• East Asia
• edamame beans
• food safety
• geopolitics

Notes

1. I calculated the value of the East Asian frozen vegetable trade (China, Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, South Korea, Taiwan) using the FAOSTAT database of the United Nations and compared it with the value of the edamame trade (between Taiwan, China, and Japan) based on statistics from the Japanese and Taiwanese governments. The value of the East Asian frozen vegetable trade in 2000‐‐2013 was approximately US$6 billion, and the edamame trade was US$1.3 billion. Edamame was the single highest‐value frozen vegetable crop in East Asia.

2. Based on the definition of the WTO, the TRIPS agreement covers areas of intellectual property including the following: copyright and related rights (that is, the rights of performers, producers of sound recordings and broadcasting organizations); trademarks including service marks; geographical indications including appellations of origin; industrial designs; patents including the protection of new varieties of plants; the layout‐designs of integrated circuits; and undisclosed information, including trade secrets and test data.

3. The intellectual work carried out by Takayanagi has revealed that in terms of the fresh fruit and vegetable trade in East Asia, Taiwan and South Korea are ranked 1st and 2nd, respectively, as the main exporters to Japan (Takayanagi 2006). Both of these countries were colonies of Japan in the first half of the twentieth century. For another insightful work with a similar focus addressing the case of Africa, please refer to Susanne Freidberg's French Beans and Food Scares.

4. Author interview with Mr Kuo‐Lung Chou, Director of Crop Improvement Section, Kaohsiung Agricultural Research and Extension Station, June 2013.

5. Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction Report Archive (1969).

6. The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants.

7. Author interview with Mrs Mei‐Su Huang Liao, Vegetable Processing Plant Owner, Donghai Frozen Foods Co., Ltd., July 2015.

8. “China to establish comprehensive food safety standard system.” 27 December 2016: [http://english.agri.gov.cn/news/dqnf/201612/t20161227_246128.htm].

9. 1 RMB=0.15 USD, 1 mu = 0.07 hectare.

10. Author interview with Mr. C. C. Tsai, President of Tai Mei Food Co., Ltd., July 2014.

11. Author interview with Mr. Kuo‐Lung Chou, Chief of the Crop Improvement Department, Kaohsiung Agricultural Research and Extension Station, June 2013.

12. Author interview with Mr. Kuo‐Lung Chou, Chief of the Crop Improvement Department, Kaohsiung Agricultural Research and Extension Station, June 2013.

13. Author interview with Mr. C. C. Tsai, President of Tai Mei Food Co., Ltd., July 2014.

14. Author interview with Mr. Kuo‐Lung Chou, Chief of the Crop Improvement Department, Kaohsiung Agricultural Research and Extension Station, June 2013.

15. Author interview with Mr. C. C. Tsai, President of Tai Mei Food Co., Ltd., July 2014.

16. Author interview with Mr. Kuo‐Lung Chou, Chief of the Crop Improvement Department, and Hau‐Ping Chou, Principle Investigator of the Department of Plant Protection, both at Kaohsiung Agricultural Research and Extension Station, July 2013. Due to the lack of permission to reveal commerical secrets of this patent transfer, I can only touch upon the case briefly.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kuan‐chi Wang

Kuan‐Chi Wang is a Ph.D. candidate in the Geography Department at the University of Oregon. His current theoretical interests include critical geopolitics, environmental governance and politics, new economic geography, and geospatial modeling with focus on East Asian foodways, in particular high value vegetables and fruits; [[email protected]].