Will Covid-19 increase food safety measures in Kenya?
As Covid-19 campaigns continue to rise in Kenya, the common message is that safety is everyone’s responsibility. While there is no evidence that Covid-19 can be transmitted through food, Kenyans’ consciousness towards food safety has increased. On 7th June, the world celebrated the second edition of World Food Safety Day, that covered, among other topics, ways to reduce the risk of food poisoning. The overall message behind the day is that everyone has a responsibility in ensuring food safety.
The role of government is to recognise, develop, and regulate policies that ensure adherence to food safety standards. The producer’s role is just as important — to comply with good agricultural practices from input to post harvesting. In between, value chain players, such as distributors and processors, are expected to ensure food safety by adhering to the laid out hygiene guidelines. Finally, the consumer bears the responsibility of maintaining basic hygiene when handling, cooking, and storing food.
Kenya unveiled its National Food Safety Policy in 2013, amid rising concern about the growing health, and economic costs, of food safety violations in the country. Numerous outbreaks have been documented over the years, from brucellosis infections linked to contaminated raw milk, massive pesticide residues on fruit and vegetables sold in markets across the country, and aflatoxin poisoning from maize and groundnuts.
The persistence of these serious incidents can be attributed to our collective failure in pursuing food safety. At the government level, existing policies, especially on traceability of food consumed in the country, have not been adequately enforced. Farmers and producers too are liable, for ignoring guidelines on the application of chemicals on the farm, as well as post-harvest storage. While consumers are often unaware of the unsafety of food, they too bear some responsibility for failing to demand safe food and seek rectification where this is not met. Additionally, they expose themselves when they opt to buy cheaper, unprocessed and unregulated foods, such as raw milk.
Covid-19: A game changer in food safety attitudes?
A recent article by reporter James Smart showed that before the Covid-19 outbreak, Kenyans did not really care about where the fish they consumed came from. But when the first few cases were reported, more consumers started to express concern about the dominance of fish imports from China, and to question whether these could be linked to the pandemic. For the first time, the conventional wisdom that consumers always prefer the cheaper option was challenged as demand for local fish grew, despite the higher cost.
However, as Smart notes, the increased awareness on food safety has been hampered by lockdown measures, which have affected fish supplies. The resulting losses, both for fishermen, as well as fish traders and transporters, highlights the importance of shortening the “farm to fork” timeline for fresh foods, which go through minimal processing and standardization. A longer chain also means that there are many more food handlers, which increases the risk of predisposing food unsafe factors.
Food traceability: A weak link
Food traceability is a key component of food safety as this allows risk factors to be identified at any stage. However, the Kenyan food system leaves little to no room for traceability, especially for perishables, due to inadequate infrastructural and physical systems, such as grain stores, or refrigerated trucks.
The vast majority of foods in Kenya are traded in informal markets, making it even harder to keep records for traceability. For instance, it is close to impossible for a tomato consumer in Eldoret, in western Kenya, to track the safety of handling operations of the tomato from Tanzania, over 1000 km away. Besides, the average Kenyan consumer is unaware of the importance of traceability, and in the absence of strong consumer lobbies, we see little demand for better quality food. For this reason, self-sufficiency is encouraged. Kitchen gardens address several aspects of food safety, such as unsafe use of chemicals and vegetables laced with metallic toxicities from poor water
Connecting all the dots in food safety
Addressing all these, and other food safety risks, requires a holistic and multisectoral approach. For starters, it is critical to train farmers on good agricultural practices, such as adhering to the correct harvest intervals after application of pesticides, or how to safely store their harvested crop to minimise aflatoxin contamination. Holding food handlers accountable to comply with food safety standards is just as important.
The Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS) has succeeded in enforcing food safety regulations for export. Similar efforts should be made to improve safety within the domestic market. However, this will be a tough challenge, especially in informal markets at which most Kenyans access food. Developing the right infrastructure, raising awareness, and enforcement of guidelines are the first steps toward food safety.
Covid-19 has opened up a small window of opportunity in which the interests of consumers, regulators, and businesses have come closer with regard to food safety. The million dollar question now is whether this collective interest will translate into safer food for Kenyans during, and post Covid-19.
Written by Sharon Cheboi
This article is part of Covid-19 Food/Future, an initiative under TMG ThinkTank for Sustainability’s SEWOH Lab project (https://www.tmg-thinktank.com/sewoh-lab). It aims at providing a unique and direct insight into the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on national and local food systems. Also follow @CovidFoodFuture, our Video Diaries From Nairobi, and @TMG_think on Twitter. Funding for this initiative is provided by BMZ, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
