Quality is a nebulous concept that must be given hard edges if it is to be useful in the tough, inflexible world of food trading. An individual shopper may be able to indulge the senses and make a final selection on the basis of taste, smell and an attractive appearance but that shopper will have assumed that other quality factors are in place. These are the factors that should weigh most heavily with producers for these can be quantified and regulated. Once the standards are met, the race is on to produce food that looks, smells and tastes better than that produced by competitors. The key question is how to achieve this great diversity of quality factors.
Quality starts in the field.
Exporters are unwilling to risk the purchase of inferior raw materials that may not comply with the quality standards of their trading partners. Processors take a similar view, knowing that poor quality from the field can create problems during processing when remedies are difficult and expensive to apply. Farmers do not want to lose potential markets but the problem in many developing countries is that they lack the technical information on how to feed plants to produce the top quality food that buyers demand. IPI is helping to overcome this by demonstrating the benefits of balanced nutrition and by disseminating the results as widely as possible. Soybean is not the only oilseed to respond so positively to potash.