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On World Food Safety Day 2025, it is now time to reframe food safety not as a siloed technical issue but as a macroeconomic priority.
Image Source: Getty
World Food Safety Day 2025, with its theme—‘Food Safety: Science in Action’—brings an opportunity to reconceptualise the utility of science in understanding food safety as a central pillar in the global development agenda. While ensuring food safety is often approached as a technical or regulatory concern, its implications are deeply embedded in the economic fabric of our societies. Food safety directly affects productivity, human capital formation, public health spending, and trade competitiveness. Therefore, it is not only integral to achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 (Zero Hunger) and SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being), but also several other interlinked SDGs associated to economic growth (SDG 8), equity (SDGs 5 and 10), sustainable communities (SDG 11), and responsible consumption and production (SDG 11). Thus, a critical question arises: If food safety is so closely linked to our lives and livelihoods, why does it remain at the periphery of the country’s fiscal priorities and global development strategies?
Food safety remains an underinvested and fragmented policy domain in many economies—especially in the Global South. Despite the substantial economic burden of foodborne diseases—estimated at US$ 95.2 billion annually in productivity losses and US$ 15 billion in treatment costs—persistent public underfunding, institutional fragmentation, and weak regulatory enforcement continue to undermine consumer health and broader development outcomes in low- and middle-income countries. Recognising food safety as an economic priority, based on the principles of public goods, externalities, and market failure, justifies and helps design robust fiscal and institutional interventions that address economic and social objectives in tandem. Negative externalities arise when various actors (along the production line) fail to bear the full social costs of unsafe practices—such as foodborne illnesses or public health burdens. Conversely, stakeholders who invest in food safety generate positive externalities by reducing public health risks and enhancing consumer trust and market efficiency. However, these social costs or benefits seldom get reflected in market prices or private returns, and individual market actors have no incentive to account for them, resulting in under-provision of food safety measures and market failure. For these purposes, public intervention—channelled via regulations, subsidies, and surveillance—is essential to internalise these costs and align private actions with public welfare.
Food safety is a classic example of a public good, where market incentives are insufficient to ensure optimal outcomes. Information asymmetries between producers and consumers mean buyers are often unable to assess whether food is contaminated or adulterated. The problem amplifies in informal markets, which are marred by limited regulatory oversight and weak traceability systems. As the ‘Market for Lemons’ theory would suggest, poor-quality (unsafe) products can also often crowd out the safe ones, reducing overall welfare and trust among different actors across the food value chain.
In 2019, the World Bank estimated unsafe food costs in low- and middle-income countries at US$ 110 billion annually, in productivity losses and medical expenses.
Furthermore, the economic costs of foodborne illnesses are equally significant. In 2019, the World Bank estimated unsafe food costs in low- and middle-income countries at US$ 110 billion annually, in productivity losses and medical expenses. These burdens fall disproportionately on those experiencing or vulnerable to extreme poverty, as they are more likely to consume cheaper, informal, and inadequately regulated food products. For low- and lower-middle-income countries, the informal food sector accounts for 80 percent and 65 percent of the cases of food-borne diseases, respectively. Women and children, in particular, bear the brunt through malnutrition, disease, and lower lifetime productivity, making food safety not simply a technical challenge but also a question of equity and social justice.
Government intervention in food safety is both essential and economically justified. However, until recently, several developing countries noted investing only a modest amount in food safety, with equally restrained coordinated policy action. Therefore, a reallocation of fiscal priorities is a must to build the core capabilities of surveillance and testing infrastructure, and enable regular inspections, laboratory networks, and digital traceability systems. For example, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has increased food testing capacity through public-private partnerships (PPPs), but laboratory coverage continues to be uneven across states.
Micro, small, medium, and informal food enterprises often lack the resources to comply with safety standards. Targeted support—such as tax rebates, subsidised testing kits, and compliance training programmes—can reduce the cost of entry into regulated markets.
Micro, small, medium, and informal food enterprises often lack the resources to comply with safety standards. Targeted support—such as tax rebates, subsidised testing kits, and compliance training programmes—can reduce the cost of entry into regulated markets. A centralised system often fails to reach last-mile vendors and rural producers. Fiscal decentralisation—through grants to local governments—can further enhance responsiveness and context-specific enforcement.
Investments in early detection technologies, Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered diagnostics, and cold chain logistics constitute other crucial aspects. Considering global examples, China’s ‘Smart Agriculture’ initiatives showcase how digital tools can reduce pesticide misuse and contamination risks, and simultaneously drive positive impacts on food safety and regulatory cost reductions along the upstream value chain. Notably, these measures offer positive spillovers beyond health. They reduce antimicrobial resistance, improve export competitiveness, and boost consumer confidence and economic activity, thus expanding the tax base and supporting long-term growth.
Through its Global Strategy for Food Safety (2022–2030), WHO supports countries in strengthening national food control systems, adopting a ‘One Health’ approach that connects human, animal, and environmental health.
International institutional frameworks can play a critical role in supporting these national fiscal strategies by offering technical guidance, standard-setting tools, and data-driven risk assessments to help countries channel investments where they matter most. The World Health Organization (WHO) plays a pivotal role in prompting governments to treat food safety not as an isolated regulatory issue, but as a core component of public health and sustainable development. Through its Global Strategy for Food Safety (2022–2030), WHO supports countries in strengthening national food control systems, adopting a ‘One Health’ approach that connects human, animal, and environmental health. It equips governments with science-based risk assessments that inform international food standards, helping align domestic regulations with global norms and augmenting trade competitiveness. WHO also offers tools to evaluate and improve the performance of food safety systems across the entire value chain, highlighting priority gaps and tracking progress. It aids countries to manage emerging risks—from genetically modified foods to lab-grown products—by evaluating new technologies, and assisting in emergency preparedness and response. Moreover, WHO strengthens surveillance systems for foodborne diseases, integrating them into broader national health frameworks and ensuring alignment with international regulations such as the International Health Regulations (IHR), 2005. By helping countries estimate the health burden of unsafe food, WHO enables data-driven policymaking and fiscal prioritisation. This is done in close coordination with global partners—such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)---ensuring a coherent, systems-level response to food safety from farm to fork.
Food safety is not merely confined to national borders. International trade in agri-food products—valued at over US$ 2 trillion annually—is governed by a web of standards, norms, and compliance mechanisms. The World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) allows countries to set food safety regulations, provided they are scientific and non-discriminatory. While this framework seeks to balance safety and trade, it also poses a barrier for developing countries. Many exporters in Africa and South Asia lack the institutional and financial capacity to comply with stringent standards in the European Union (EU) or the United States (US). As a result, they face port rejections, eroding trust, export revenues, and trade competitiveness, severely jeopardising their overall prospects for growth. In 2023, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rejected nearly 30 shipments of Indian spices and herbs at their ports, citing causes of salmonella contamination.
Global standard-setting bodies such as the Codex Alimentarius Commission are crucial in harmonising benchmarks and supporting scientific rules. Codex standards serve as international reference points, helping reduce trade disputes by providing a common scientific basis for food safety regulations across countries and cross-border trade. However, many low- and middle-income countries struggle to meet these benchmarks due to limited technical infrastructure and institutional capacity. In this context, greater South-South cooperation is essential to pool investments, build technical capacity, and ensure standard-setting remains inclusive and equitable. For instance, African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) partners could co-invest in regional laboratories and mutual recognition frameworks to reduce compliance costs among intra- and extra-regional partners. Even in a fragmented geopolitical environment, food safety governance today offers a non-contentious space for international cooperation, anchored in shared social and economic interests.
The science of food safety cannot be delinked from the economics of food safety. Governments must move beyond narrow regulatory approaches and adopt macroeconomic strategies that treat food safety as both a public health imperative and a developmental priority. To bridge the macroeconomic gap in food safety, the following priorities must guide national and international agendas:
Dedicated budget lines in national and sub-national plans for food safety systems.
Cross-sectoral coordination between health, agriculture, trade, and environment ministries.
Fiscal incentives for Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and informal vendors to upgrade practices.
Greater Global South engagement in multilateral norm-setting, with technical assistance for international compliance.
Regional public goods frameworks in regional trade blocs to pool risks and lower compliance costs.
By embedding food safety in fiscal policy and development planning, countries can safeguard their populations, unlock trade potential, and ensure that safe food is not a luxury but a guaranteed right. As a critical enabler of SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) and SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being)—and with strong spillovers to goals on other SDG targets related to decent work, economic growth, and reduced inequalities—food safety deserves recognition not only as a technical priority but as a foundational pillar of sustainable development.
Debosmita Sarkar is an Associate Fellow with the Centre for New Economic Diplomacy at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Debosmita Sarkar was an Associate Fellow with the SDGs and Inclusive Growth programme at the Centre for New Economic Diplomacy at Observer Research Foundation, India. Her ...
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