Effective adoption of agri‐food assurance systems

The purpose of this article is to identify the drivers for, and barriers to, the adoption of assurance systems in a range of agri‐food value chains that will allow the design of better, more appropriate‐for‐the‐task assurance systems that are more likely to be fully utilised by value chain members.

Semi‐structured interviews were used to collect a snapshot of the knowledge, attitudes, skills and aspirations (KASA) of value‐chain members with regard to assurance systems in fruit (cherries), seafood (mussels) and red meat (lamb). Responses were grouped by KASA characteristic for qualitative analysis. The nature of the dairy industry necessitated the use of a desktop review of the food‐safety assurance system.

The actual drivers for, and barriers to, adoption varied with the industry studied but included the requirements of domestic and export market customers, realistic appreciation of risk, mandatory schemes, the influence of other value chain members, financial incentives and external influences. The major barrier to the adoption of assurance systems was the perception that the costs of such an assurance system outweigh its benefits.

This study was purely qualitative and covered only one value chain within each of three industries with a desktop review in a fourth industry.

A suite of drivers that includes financial incentives results in more effective adoption of assurance systems than a single driver such as market access.

The observations could lead to a series of design principles for the development and deployment of agri‐food assurance systems.