Tighten safety and inspection to curb contaminated foods market
What you need to know:
- Trade in illegal and contaminated foods — including feline meat — thrives on the back of poor regulation and enforcement.
Poor handling through the food chain, from the farm through transportation to storage and markets, puts consumers at great risk.
- The regulatory and enforcement chain comprises multiple agencies, whose overriding responsibility is to protect consumers.
The crackdown on corruption has awakened Kenyans to the reality of how vulnerable they are to consumption of contaminated foods. Chemical and heavy metal residues found by investigating authorities in sugar, maize, fertiliser and other commodities imported in large quantities since last year signal the dangers of permissive regulation and enforcement of food safety regulations.
Public health authorities, who are responsible for ensuring that food is clean and safe for human consumption, have been careless and negligent. They have surrendered markets and food handling facilities to dirty cartels that don’t even observe the basic hygiene standards.
DISEASES
Trade in illegal and contaminated foods — including feline meat, raw milk, bottled water, juices, fruits and vegetables — thrives on the back of poor regulation and enforcement. Poor handling through the food chain, from the farm through transportation to storage and markets, puts consumers at great risk.
The regulatory and enforcement chain comprises multiple agencies, whose overriding responsibility is to protect consumers from criminals that expose the country to the risk of foodborne diseases. These include the public health department under the Ministry of Health and its affiliates under the counties, Kenya Bureau of Standards, Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services, Kenya Dairy Board, Horticultural Crops Development Authority and a dozen or so others.
DISABILITY
These agencies should, ideally, ensure that food distribution facilities, including markets and eateries, have well-maintained sanitation facilities. They have been mandated to enforce over 20 laws and supporting regulations on food safety and management.
The government needs to establish a strong food safety coordination mechanism for the agencies. It should crack the whip on them to stringently inspect all foods in the market and kick out merchants who don’t observe safety and hygiene standards. The agencies should rein in the unscrupulous cartels who sell contaminated foods, some under counterfeit labels, without a care.
The World Health Organisation warned, in the first ever study on the burden of foodborne diseases, that eating contaminated food could cause foodborne diseases, disability and even death. More than 250 foodborne diseases are caused by bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi. The WHO study, published in December 2015, underscored the risk of consuming contaminated foods and advised governments to prevent the diseases through public education on food handling within the food chain.
POLLUTED
A polluted food market can have serious consequences for economic growth and social equity. It crowds out suppliers of healthy foods by creating a lucrative alternative market in illegal and contaminated foods, which are often cheaper. It also increases operational risks for genuine investors in food and health industries. Poor quality contraband sugar, for instance, affects confectionary, soft drinks and other manufactured products that use industrial sugar as an essential input.
Regulating the market and enforcing good practices would protect investors from losing their domestic market share to purveyors of contaminated foods. It would also protect the export market, developed and integrated with the global market based on raw and processed foods that adhere to international quality standards.
The export market is particularly sensitive as countries enforce strict quality codes to prevent contaminated foods from entering their local markets and risking the health and lives of citizens. Kenya’s flower and fresh produce exports to Europe and the Middle East, for instance, have passed the test of time.
MANUFACTURING
The challenge is to ensure that food safety issues do not compromise implementation of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s ‘Big Four’ plans for economic transformation. Food security and nutrition requires clean and hygienic food; universal healthcare is more likely to be achieved when people eat healthy foods; and safe and quality agricultural produce is the foundation of growing manufacturing and jobs, from increased output of food processing industries.
Reforming the agencies entrusted to food safety and management is key to improving the pathway to a healthy, productive population and a prosperous nation.
Mr Warutere is a director of Mashariki Communications Ltd, [email protected]
