Honey Safety Standards and Its Impacts on China's Honey Export

Food safety standard draws increasing concerns on agricultural trade throughout the world. This paper aims to assess the impact of maximum residual limit standard (MRL) of chloromycetin on honey exporting from China. To achieve this objective, the paper discusses the trends of China's honey production and export practices, analyzes changes on MRL of chloromycetin adopted by major importing countries, and use a gravity model to estimate the impact of MRL of chloromycetin on China's honey export. The results show that despite the rapid growth of China's honey production, honey export has declined significantly since 2000. The major reason of declining honey export was mainly due to the more stringent food safety standards indicated by MRL of chloromycetin imposed by importing countries on their honey imports.