Food regulation in a period of agricultural retreat: the British experience

Geofm/m, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. S543,19!32 Printed in Great Britain

0016-7185192 $5.00+0.lxl Pergamon Pm3 pk

Food Regulation in a Period of Agricultural Retreat: the British

Experience

ANDREW FLYNN* and TERRY MARSDEN,* Hull, U.K.

Abstract: This paper examines the changing nature of food regulation in Britain, emphasising the need for national based analyses within an international context. Outlining the position of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in food and farm regulation, we assess the recent food hygiene crises and the nature of the state’s response. This suggests the emergence of new corporatist patterns of regulation reflecting the ascendant economic and political power of the post-farm parts of the food system.

Introduction

For most of the post-war period British agricultural and food policy has been relatively free of controversy. In a highly urbanised nation the prime require- ments of successive governments have been to ensure the ready availability of good-quality cheap food. This was achieved through a combination of support for home agriculture and the adoption of a liberal trade policy. Undoubtedly, even before entry to the European Community (EC), there were tensions within agricultural policy, but membership of the EC has tended to heighten existing difficulties and foster new ones.

Of greatest concern has been the cost of agricultural support. This is not a new problem. It caused some anguish within the Conservative Party of the 1950s

and 1960s as it attempted to reconcile the divergent demands of the farming population, its traditional political ally in the countryside, and to curb expendi- ture on agriculture. Under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) the matter has become still more controversial. Increasing awareness of the sums of

* School of Geography and Earth Resources, University of Hull, Nottingham Road, Hull HU6 7RX, U.K.

money involved simply in storing and disposing of surplus agricultural produce has played a significant part in the politicisation of agricultural policy. As the productivist ethos has been challenged, so attention has turned, for example, to the :effects of agriculture upon the environment. Whilst much is now known about the destructive impact and long-term costs of a state-supported capital-intensive agriculture-with attention turning to the formulation of more environ- mentally sensitive policies-other processes involved in the production and consumption of food have hitherto attracted little public attention.

It is only recently following a series of food scares in Britain, centring on salmonella in eggs and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in cows, that public and political disquiet has been expressed at the nature of the links upstream and downstream of the farmer, and how they relate to the eventual consumption of food. So far, however, the academic contri- bution to this debate has been minimal.

This paper attempts to open up one aspect of the food system to scrutiny, that of its regulatory process. It emphasises the need for approaches to be grounded in the operation of the nation state while taking

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account of the changing context of international forces. After outlining the role of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fijheries and Food @vIAFF) in food and farm regulation we assess the significance of recent food hygiene crises .and the nature of the state’s response. We conclude by pointing to some of the emergent patterns of regulation and link these to the increasing economic and political power of the post- farm parts of the food system. First, though, we outline the changing structure of the food system, and the role of agriculture in British society.

The National Food System in an International Context

In advanced capitalist societies the food system represents a competitive arena in which different sectors and companies struggle for ascendancy. Agriculture, manufacturing, retailing, distribution and catering sectors compete over who is to secure the greatest control and profit from food. Over time food companies have responded to the long-term inelasticities in food demand in advanced societies by increasing their share of value added relative to the production sector. In many advanced nations the food manufacturing sector absorbs up to 60% of the value added (although there are broad national variations) and is increasingly concentrated among a small group of multinational interests (LANG and WIGGINS, 1985; WARD, 1990).

Within the British context, 25 companies are now largely responsible for controlling the bulk of the British food system (WARD, 1990). Together the 25 are responsible for 45% of animal feed sales, 77% of agricultural machinery sales, 65% of agrochemical sales, 90% of fertiliser sales, 44% of the turnover of all food manufacturing, and 47% of all food retail sales. Most of these lirms are wholly British-based but an increasing number of them are seeking markets and acquisitions in Europe. In Europe, Britain comes second only to France in terms of the degree of concentration in the food sector (OUTRAM CULLI- NAN AND COMPANY LTD, 1990), while British- based firms showed the highest degree of cross- border acquisition during the 1980s (for example Hillsdown Holdings, Hazelwood Foods, Albert Fisher, Unilever, Cadbury-Schweppes).

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Among the most significant shifts within the food system has been the growing prominence of retailing firms. Whilst still. “lwgdy nationally based they increasingly call the tune in the food sector (EPARD , 1987). Their devel?ment of own brands, undercut- ting the traditional manufacturers j and direct contact with the consumer makes them increasingly powerful in conditions of inelastic demand. Food manufacturing companies remain strong, particularly in the areas of food distribution, wholesaling and catering (for instance AB Foods, Booker, Grand Metropolitan and Unigate), but retailers are increasingly dictating the terms and conditions for the processing of food. This growth of influence has corresponded with increasing levels of concentration: the British grocery market is now dominated by six companies which control 60% of sales, and this trend looks set to continue.

Agriculture in British Society

The 1980s witnessed a declining role for agriculture in British society in a number of ways. As part of an increasingly sophisticated food system, its economic power is diminishing, both within and outside of the sector. Technological advances in the input supply and food processing sectors are threatening both to diminish the economic value of agriculture as well as integrate it more significantly into allied industries. The transition of the farm sector to a provider of raw materials for the corporate food industry means that, in terms of food production, the value-added contri- bution of the farm sector continues to fall, whilst that of the post-farm manufacturing sectors increase.

Amongst some other European countries agriculture has a quite different status. The situation is well illustrated by the divisions within the EC over the GAIT negotiations. Whilst Britain’s agriculture minister, John Gummer, believes that agricultural support will have to be cut, the German farm minister argued in 1990 that “If I am offered the choice between the collapse of the GATT talks and the ruination of 70% of my farmers I will choose the former” (The Guardian, 9 October 1990). Neither is there much to indicate convergence of agricultural structures between the U.K. and the rest of Europe. The pace of change is, at present, simply too fast; between 1980 and 1990 in the U.K. the number of full-time farms declined by 25% and the number of

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full-time hired workers fell by 35%. As a conse- quence, only 55% of farms in the U.K. would be likely to benefit from the direct income subsidies to farms under 30 ha (i.e. the ‘MacSharry proposals’), compared with 88% for the EC as a whole.

Challenges to the structure of the food system and the balance of economic power naturally raise new political issues. Current practices have, of course, been shaped by past political forces, and one set of questions focuses on the adequacy of existing institutions and styles of regulation to cope with new demands. MAFF is one body that has appeared anachronistic and found itself subjected to unwanted scrutiny.

MAFF and the Regulation of the Food System

MAW lies at the heart of the food regulatory system in Britain. As John MacGregor, then Minister of Agriculture, pointed out, MAFF has the responsibility for “keeping the whole food process safe” (The Times, 13 February 1989). Similarly, his successor, John Gummer, has argued that responsibility for the entire food chain “from sowing the seed to selling in the shop” (The Guardian, 3 July 1990) should be kept within the government, and presumably more specifr- tally within the Ministry.

Relatively little is known about how MAFF goes about its task or how it works with other government departments. Political scientists have not been much concerned with a critical analysis of public adminis- tration, and a department with the glamour of MAFF has attracted virtually no attention. Of the two books that deal specifically with the Ministry, one was writ- ten by a then Permanent Secretary (WINNIFRITH, 1962) and the other was a celebration of the Ministry’s centenary (FOREMAN, 1989). Neither offers a rigorous scrutiny of the work of the department.

Rather more is known about the links between the farming industry and MAFF. Most attention has been devoted to the relationship between the Ministry and the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) and whether or not this should be regarded as a form of corporatism. Although this debate has been running since the early 196Os, it has rarely concerned itself with an examin- ation of the work of MAFF. However, the debate

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does offer three useful insights. The first is that, in organisational terms, MAFF is a somewhat excep- tional department. Like other departments it has a Whitehall base, but where it differs from most is in its direct chain of command that goes from a regional to a local level and ultimately to the individual farmer. Many departments, whilst retaining responsibility for a policy area, carry out much of their work through other agents. For example, the Department of Trans- port relies heavily on the road-building programmes of county councils and British Rail to run the rail- ways. Second, because of the close links that have been fostered between MAFF and farmers and their organisations, there have been allegations of agency capture. In other words, MAFF seeks to represent the views of farmers at the expense of consumers and other sectors of the food industry. Third, it is widely believed that farmers favour a system of self- regulation, that is they regulate their own activities as free as possible of external control (COX et al., 1985).

From this outline of the framework within which MAFF operates in its dealings with the agricultural industry, it is worthwhile trying to extend the analysis to other elements in the food system, and to elucidate MAFF’s position as it faces up to unprecedented change in its policy environment. In terms of the personnel it employs, MAFF is one of the larger government departments, not of the same scale as the Department of Social Security with its numerous benefit offices, but more significant, for example, than the Treasury, the Foreign Office, the Depart- ment of Energy and the Department of Education. MAFF employs about 12,000 civil servants out of a total of around 600,000. Although it formally has responsibilities for three areas, agriculture, fisheries and food, fisheries is the most minor of the three. The Ministry of Food was formed in 1939 but was not merged with agriculture until 1955, much to the unease of some contemporary commentators who feared that the interests of distributors and consumers would be weakened in a department that would be primarily concerned with farmers’ needs (FOREMAN, 1989, p. 57).

Both before it merged, and since, the food section of MAFF adopted an administrative and regulatory style similar to that of agriculture. Favoured interests are incorporated into the decision-making structure in an attempt to ensure that government and industry

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move together. Co-ordination between the two is assisted by a series of committees covering such issues as additives, nutrition and the safety of food (NATIONAL CONSUMER COUNCIL, 1988). The deliberations of these committees and their recom- mendations are of significance because they are con- tinually modifying the boundaries of existing regulations as the food companies, retailers and input suppliers search for new products and processes. These changes have been reflected in MAFF’s atti- tude to food regulations which has “tended to move away from imposing compositional standards on food to provide more effective ingredient and nutritional labelling” (FOREMAN, 1989, p. 118). The extra flexibility this modified stance has given food manufacturers is reflected, for example, in low-fat products which were previously outlawed by restrictions on minimum fat content.

In contrast to thesituation with farmers where MAFF works directly through its own agency on the ground [Agricultural Development and Advisory Service (ADAS)], food legislation is enforced by local authorities through their trading standards departments or environmental health officers (EHOs) . Local authorities also play a key part in the regulation of slaughtering in conjunction with veterinarians. Over time the vets have become increasingly incorporated into the core of MAFF, culminating in their inte- gration into ADAS in 1971. The State Veterinary Service is responsible for animal welfare on the farm, in transit, and at the slaughterhouse, but only for the first of these functions does it have sole responsibility. The rest are shared with EHOs. This division in responsibilities makes Britain somew_hat unusual compared to the rest of Europe, where vets are involved more fully in the slaughtering process, from the initial certification that the animal is fit for slaughter, to the testing of them afterwards.

What emerges, therefore, is a set of subtle but significant differences between MAFF’s regulation of farmers and other elements in the food system. Whilst self-regulation might be favoured, close con- sultation with producer interests is the norm. The roles played by vets and local authorities add a further dimension. The powers of vets are quite unlike those of other ADAS officials. A vet can stop an animal going to slaughter but a local official cannot stop a farmer applying an excess amount of pesticide.

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Neither is the power of intervention of an EHO or trading standards officer to be found in an ADAS official. Indeed, the break between MAFF’s responsibility for the food system and the power of executive action that resides with local authority officials is quite unlike anything confronting farmers in their relationship with MAFF.

The Emergence of the Food Hygiene Debate and the Government Response

The late 1980s brought about a considerable increase in the reported cases of food poisoning in Britain. There were 30,000 cases of food-related illness in 1987; this accelerated to 41,000 in 1988 and 54,000 in 1989. Public concern focused on health scares associ- ated with salmonella in eggs, listeria in cheese and cooked chilled foods, and BSE in beef. Together, these scares were to both prolong and deepen the crisis of confidence in British agriculture and the legitimacy of the Ministry. Indeed, it was inquiries by the Agriculture Select Committee into BSE and salmonella that did as much to quell public anxieties as any of the Ministry’s pronouncements.

For both salmonella and BSE, the quality of the livestock feed was identified by many as a key causal factor in the spread of the problem, although no long- term action has been taken to significantly control the animal protein feed manufacturers. The government has instead preferred the selective compulsory slaughtering of infected animals and a partial ban on infected animals. As a result, 18 months after the height of the salmonella crisis, regulatory controls on infected animals were relaxed, with infected foul carcasses once more being permitted for use for processed foods such as soups and pies at ‘approved factories. Whilst facing increasing embarrassment and concern at its inability to keep either the farmers or the public happy, the government was also con- ducting a review of food law, a review which had been running since 1984. Prior to this food hygiene law had remained largely unchanged since the Second World War, not being updated, for example, to take account of the growth of food additives or the selling of processed foods. Further technological changes within the food industry, such as irradiation, along with worries that the government would not comply with increasing EC intervention in food safety issues,

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brought increasing pressure for action. The situation was compounded by evidence to the Agriculture Select Committees which painted a confused picture of the registration of food premises and clearly indi- cated a need for updating regulations.

The Food Safety Act, passed in 1990, responded to many of the political pressures upon the government, notably in the establishment of a Food Safety Direc- torate based within MAFF and a consumer panel. Overall, though, the thrust of the Act veered towards the food industry as its stated aim was the manage- ment of consumer protection in the context of pro- tecting ‘the needs of an innovative and competitive food industry by avoiding unnecessary burdens and controls’. Consequently the Act permitted the irradiation of food, a move favoured by food processors and (some) retailers as it prolonged the shelf life of food and reduced the risks of contamination.

Irradiation proved to be the most controversial aspect of the Act, consumer and health groups fighting a fierce and well-publicised campaign of opposition to the measure. More important in policy terms, though, was the new responsibility placed upon food outlets to demonstrate that they have taken ‘all reasonable precautions’ and shown ‘due diligence’ in the manufacture, transportation, storage and prep- aration of foodstuffs.

Faced with an increasingly oligopolistic market situation the large retailers have embarked on ambitious expansion programmes in an attempt to secure their own survival. Now not only do retailers increasingly dictate product innovation, but, in responding to the developments of food manufacturers, find themselves absorbing more responsibility and risk in the maintenance of food quality. It has yet to be demon- strated through the courts whether retailers can avoid prosecution for selling contaminated produce if they can show ‘due diligence’. Nevertheless, retailers are less likely to accept the guarantees of the food manufacturing suppliers preferring to arrange their own verification. Retailers thus hold a critical position in ensuring food quality.

Given that any regulatory change holds financial costs and benefits it would seem that retailers will increase their power over those upstream and probably intro- duce more own-brand products which cut the margins

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of the processors. In turn such tendencies are likely to lead to calls for farmers to produce more standard&d products and to be more ‘flexible’ about adjusting to product control (HAWKINS, 1991). As the livestock trading controller for Safeway (Britain’s third largest retailer) argued to a Conference of the National Agricultural Centre, “there are too many farmers working on their own. More organisation is needed to market produce and supply a guaranteed volume of livestock throughout the year” (quoted in Farmers Weekly, 28 December 1990). An emphasis upon smoothing the marketing and contracting processes of farmers, food manufacturers and retailers has been a consistent theme projected by representatives of MAFF when engaging in the GAIT’ and MacSharry debates during 1991. The need to encourage ‘cooper- ative’ activity amongst farmers, reduce notions of ‘dog and stick’ farming and to streamline product supply are seen as principal objectives for the con- tinuation of an efficient ‘British’ agriculture. Such notions are entirely consistent with the increasingly vulnerable (in terms of food safety) retail multiples who require new rounds of restructuring and inte- gration in their food supply chains in order to maintain a competitive market share.

The increasing technological sophistication of food manufacturing, distribution and storage is apparently doing little to reduce the vulnerability of the country to food health scares as experienced over recent years. Moreover, given the chronic underfunding of EHOs-the state’s enforcement arm-quality control rests critically on the actions of the food retailers.

Within central government the food crises have raised questions about MAFF’s role, some going so far as to predict its imminent demise. Like many organisations when confronted with unwanted change, MAFF has sought to recreate and maintain its traditional pattern of relationships and regulatory style. Indeed, the very emphasis MAFF places upon certain types of scientific evidence has tended to divert attention from the real as well as potential market changes and fragilities incurred by the food hygiene issues themselves. This is particularly notice- able in the case of the meat trade. The period 1980- 1986 saw beef and veal consumption fall by 19%, mutton and lamb by 23%, and pork by 12%. In a fast declining market beef producers and manufacturing groups have become increasingly critical of MAFF

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for what they see as inflaming rather than dampening down the problem of BSE. Meanwhile as food processors and retailers try to reconstitute meat products in new ways as a way of maintaining and enhancing their market share (as well as adding value) they have found it expedient to vocally support the consumer against the interests of some of their major competi- tors in the inputs sectors. Retailers have thus attempted to disassociate themselves from the crisis and to place even greater stress on food quality in their own stores. Food quality itself, from once being an accepted publicly-held norm, has now become commoditised, and a particularly significant factor in maintaining consumer demand and market growth (SHAW et al., 1991).

The implicit problems MAFF has faced over this period partly stem from its dual role, that is, at its centre and at the local level having insufficient appar- atus or ability to cope with consumer-related con- cerns over and above more narrowly based and well- entrenched production-oriented priorities. Try as he may to quell public anxieties about food quality from Whitehall, the Minister, and more generally central government, have been unable to reassure consumer interests partly because of the lack of locally based systems of regulation. The outmoded and somewhat confined roles of vets on the one hand, and EHOs on the other, have been shown to be insufficient mechan- isms for monitoring food hygiene. Gaps and weak- nesses in food hygiene monitoring at the local level have exposed MAFF at its centre, making the Ministry vulnerable to widespread criticism even from its traditional clients, the producers.

At a more basic level, however, perhaps the most significant feature of the food crises of the late 1980s and early 1990s in Britain has been the degree to which the food hygiene issue has raised public awareness not only of the existence of the food chain (as opposed to agriculture or retailing) but also to its interdependencies. MAFF are finding this increasingly difficult to handle given that their ‘natural’ reference point in policy initiation and discourse is with farming and the well-being of ‘the countryside’. This is raising the spectre of increased interdepart- mental conflict, for instance, between MAFF and the Department of Health.

Neither does the future look secure for MAFF. After

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a decade of considerable growth in concentration and internal reorganisation, the prospects of an increasingly pan-European food retailing sector, along with a multinational food processing sector, is likely to throw up further regulatory challenges. Central government will need to be able to legitimise its own actions on food quality ‘to a more seusitised consum- ing public at a time when a national regulatory framework will be increasingly threatened.

Condusions: New Patterns of Food Regulation

It is apparent that nevv rules, regulations and a changing political context are forcing a reassessment of our understanding of the pattern of intermediation between the farming community and the government, and between the government and the food processors and retailers. As yet the implications for regulatory styles remain somewhat blurred, but useful pointers are emerging.

By far the most stimulating intellectual debate has surrounded the relations between the NFU and MAFF. From the very first detailed study of the workings of the NFU, it was apparent that it was a group apart because of its relationship with MAFF. In their classic study of that relationship in the period 1945-1961, SELF and STORING (1962, p. 9) argued that:

The distinctive feature of this period has been agricultural ‘partnership’ -a close and pervasive pattern of co- operation between the Government and the principal agricultural organisations. The power of the state was enlisted to support British agriculture, to guide its development and to supervise its efficiency. The actual pro- gramrnes were worked out, at both national and local levels, with the close participation of the agricultural organisations.

Later work has only served to con&m the closeness and enduring nature of this relationship. The problem for researchers was that, whilst it was apparent that British interest groups, and the NFXJ in particu- lar, did not conform particularly well to the dominant pluralist model, they were not too sure what type of conceptual framework they should adopt.

By the 197Os, as researchers were casting round for new ideas to interpret the behaviour of British interest groups, so some began to detect a shift away from

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society’s liberal democratic base. The most obvious manifestations were twofold. First, a general shift in group tactics: bypassing Parliament and the parties and seeking direct access to the executive. Second, and more attention-grabbing, was the development of links between privileged groups (namely of employers and employees) and the government over such fundamental issues as the state of the economy, particularly as it related to incomes. Formal and well- publicised discussions between the government and the peak associations of labour and capital led to allegations of the emergence of the corporate society. In practice, in Britain at .least, this tripartism placed no duties on any of the partners and its only concrete result was the issuing of exhortatory statements.

Nevertheless, in the operation of British interest groups,.their relations with the state and changing patterns of intermediation, the basic premises of pluralism seemed inadequate. As applied to agriculture notions of a neutral state and a competitive political market had little basis in reality., It was because of dissatisfaction with existing theories of interest groups that greater attention was paid to the concept of corporatism, and the case of agriculture became something of a testing ground for the development of this concept.

While earlier writers, such as Self and Storing and WILSON (1977), clearly revealed how the farm lobby sought to influence the government, they neg- lected to analyse the reciprocal influence of the government on the NFU, even though they portrayed a situation in which the Union was reliant on the government. Subsequent analysts have characterised the relationship differently, as a sharing of authority, from which, moreover, other interests were actively excluded (GRANT, 1983; COX et al., 1985).

The state has great incentives to become involved with key producer interests to gain both support for its policies and assistance in their implementation. For interest groups such involvement offers the opportunity to shape both the formulation and implementation of policy. So, rather than a situation in which the state imposes its will on groups, or groups ‘capture’ part of the state, both sides seek each other out for their mutual benefit. Such a relationship places responsibilities on both sides: the state must ‘deliver’ on a policy that has been negotiated and the

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group leadership must ensure that the membership comply with the policy. Commentators have de- scribed such a relationship as ‘liberal’ or ‘societal’ corporatism. Corporatism in this sense is not a theory of the state, it is a form of the state (MARSH, 1983, p. 1). Moreover, at the national level corporatist relations in Britain tend to be restricted to certain defined policy areas. The recognition of such meso (or sectoral) corporatism focuses attention on the defence and promotion of specific interests whose “power dependence relationships with state agencies are monopolistic and exclusive, but not necessarily tripartite” (CAWSON, 1985, p. 9).

Interestingly commentators have also noted a spill- over effect, of agricultural corporatism into the food processing sector (GRANT, 1987). For retailers, though, at the other end of the food system it is a different picture. Their representative organisation is characterised as a weak body incapable of engaging in a corporatist relationship with the state (GRANT, 1987). Consequently the retail consortium has attracted much less scrutiny than the NFU. Not only is there a different pattern of interest representation at this end of the food system but differences in regulatory styles between agriculture and food can also be observed. Simply put, in the past it has been regarded as right and proper for the state to set standards of food quality and enforce them, whilst farmers have been subjected to minimal quality controls in carrying out their operations.

In recent years, however, there have been shifts in the pattern of intermediation within the food system. An important sign of the change in the relations between the NFU and MAFF is in the downgrading of the Annual Review. A provision of the 1947 Agriculture Act was that the government, when setting its annual subsidies for the industry, would consult representative bodies. In practice this privilege was restricted to the NFU (and its counterparts in Scotland and North- em Ireland). Britain’s membership of the EC and its CAP undoubtedly lessened the significance of the Annual Review. The NFU’s representative mon- opoly was also broken, in 1978, by the inclusion of the Farmer’s Union of Wales within the Annual Review. More recently still, after years of effort, in March 1990, the Council for the Protection of Rural England, a leading environmental organisation, was invited to contribute to the Annual Review, an

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invitation soon <extended to another conservation- minded body, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

In short, what the NFU’s position highlights is how seemingly well established corporatist relations can be undermined. Its heyday lasted for little more than 30 years, from the onset of the Second World War until Britain’s entry into the EC. Since that time the links between the government and the NFU have, perhaps inevitably, changed.

Inevitably the NFU suffers politically as the corporatist link weakens. Where in the past British farmers have benefitted from the self-regulation of their own activities, as we argue above, they now find themselves under critical scrutiny. As the controversy surrounding BSE and salmonella illustrates, the posi- tive image of farmers is under threat as they come increasingly to be regarded as culpable participants in an unsavoury production system. With the Ministry unable to protect them sufficiently from attack, farmers’ leaders have tried to appeal more directly to consumers and called for the creation of a Food Agency.

With farmers on the defensive, other elements within the food system can attempt to exploit the situation. Food companies and retailers have for some time now intervened in farming operations, for example, by tying them into contracts. Such contracts look set to increase as food quality becomes a more important political issue.

The passage of the Food Safety Act adds a further dimension to the relationship between retailers and other elements in the food system, and at the same time illustrates one of the paradoxes inherent in Conservative government policy. As part of its drive to ‘roll back the state’ and attack what appeared to be proto-corporatist institutions, such as tripartite bar- gaining with the TUG and CBI, the government has in some areas placed the onus on the private sector to undertake what would otherwise have been public- sector functions.

This phenomenon, known as private-interest govem- ment, is clearly at work with the passage of the recent Food Safety Act. Retailers’ existing needs to enforce standards on other parts of the food system are

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reinforced and legitimised by placing them within a statutory framework. By doing so, the government is enlisting retailers as agents and promoters of public policy. A new corporatist relationship is developing between the government and the increasingly concentrated retail sector.

In terms of regulation these emergent and potentially dominant relationships within the food system are distinguished from the conventional notions of corporatism on two counts. First, regulation has nor- mally been restricted to an easily identifiable sectoral group, such as farmers. Here, though, regulation is intersectoral, involving retailers, food processors and farmers. Second, the regulatory functions are no longer undertaken by a sectoral organisation, such as the NFU, but by individual private-sector companies with large market shares to protect and potentially expand. This represents the emergence of a form of micro-corporatism. To work, therefore, the system is crucially dependent upon the continued economic dominance of retailers as the new masters of the food system.

References

CAWSON, A. (1985) Varieties of corpcratism: the import- ance of the meso-level of intermediation, In: Orgutzised Interests and the State: Studies in Meso-corporatism, A. Cawson (Ed.). Sage, London.

COX, G., LOWE, P. and WINTER, M. (1985) changing directions in agricultural policy: ccrporatist arrange- ments in production and conservation policies, Sociolo- gia Ruralis, 25.

EPARD (1987) The Future of the Agricultural and Food System. University of Reading, Reading.

FOREMAN, S. (1989) Loaves and Fishes. HMSO, Lon- don.

GRANT, W. (1983) The National Farmers’ Union: the classic case of incorporation?, In: Pressure Politics, D. Marsh (Ed.). Junction Books, London.

GRANT, W. (1987) Introduction, In: Business Interests, Organisational Development and Private Interest Gov- ernment: an Intemationai Study of the Food Processing Industry, W. Grant (Ed.). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin.

HAWKINS, E. (1991) Changing technologies: neglecting autonomy on Cheshire farms, PhD thesis, CNAA.

HOUSE OF COMMONS AGRICULTURE COM- MITTEE (1989) Sahnonella in Eggs. HMSO, London

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HOWELLS, G., BRADGATE, R. and GRIPPITHS, M. (1991) The Food Safety Act. Blackstones Press, London.

LANG, T. and WIGGINS, P. (1985) The industrialisation of the UK food system: from production to consumption, In: The ZndustriaZisation of the Countryside, M. J. Healey and B. W. Ilbery (Eds). Geobooks, Norwich.

MARSH, D. (1983) Introduction: interest groups in Bri- tain: their access and power, In: Pressure Politics, D. Marsh (Ed.). Junction Books, London.

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The Restructuring of the European Food Industry. Outram Cullinan and Company Ltd, London.

SELF, P. and STORING, H. (1%2) The State and the Farmer. George Allen & Unwin, London.

SHAW, S. A., DAWSON, J. A. and BLAIR, L. (1991) Opportunities for the British Food Suppliers: Product Sourcing in the Food Chain. University of Stirling.

WARD, N. (1990) A preliminary analysis of the UK food chain, Food Policy, 15,439-441.

WILSON, 0. (1977) Special ZnterRpts and Policy Making. John Wiley, London.

WINNIPRITH, J. (1962) The Mm&y of Agriculture, Fivh- eries and Food. George, Allen & Unwin, London.

Documents

Food regulation in a period of agricultural retreat: the British experience