Summary
In recent years, governments and development agencies have sought to promote the diversification of African agro-food exports in order to accelerate economic growth, expand employment opportunities, and reduce rural poverty (Harris et al., 2001). [...] However, there are problems in horizon for export horticulture in Kenya - and may be equally applicable elsewhere in Africa and these problems will have a profound impact on small-scale farmers. [...] Limited empirical evidence exists either to confirm or refute the hypotheses that food-safety standards confer a positive external effect on farmers adopting it. Incorporating these health effects in the analysis could help to improve understanding of the true impact of emerging production standards on developing countries farmers. Therefore this paper assesses the effect of standards on (i) pesticide related incidence of acute poisoning symptoms and (ii) its associated cost of illness. Copyright 2009 by Solomon Asfaw, Dagmar Mithöfer and Hermann Waibel. All rights reserved. Readers may make verbatim copies of this document for non-commercial purposes by any means, provided that this copyright notice appears on all such copies.