New move to fight contaminated milk among vendors
What you need to know:
- “We have started the training of hawkers and we will issue them with licences allowing them to trade in milk legally. The purpose of this is to ensure that we eliminate cases of adulterated milk in the market,” the dairy board said in an earlier interview.
- Kenya has also received a grant of Sh10 billion from the government of Poland that comprises coolers and other machinery.
Vendors will soon be required to obtain pasteurised milk from processors in order to avoid contamination.
The requirement will take effect from August once 990 coolers are installed.
The move comes at a time when the Kenya Dairy Board (KDB) has announced plans to train and issue milk traders with licences as the regulator moves to formalise vending.
Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Willy Bett said cases of contaminated milk have been on the rise leading to high incidence of Brucella infection
“We have urged the Dutch Government to help us with the acquisition of pasteurisers that will play an instrumental role in addressing the health challenges that we are facing resulting from the sale of untreated milk,” said Mr Bett.
The request by the CS is part of a bilateral agreement signed between the Dutch authorities and Kenya last week.
Mr Bett said vendors will obtain the pasteurised milk at affordable rates in order to end hawking.
The milk, he said, will be packaged in a way that makes it easy to identify the treated one from the untreated.
Kenya has also received a grant of Sh10 billion from the government of Poland that comprises coolers and other machinery.
Mr Bett said the pasteurisers will be installed alongside the coolers which will be set up in all counties.
Training of hawkers
The CS has already met with governors to discuss the implementation of this project noting that the county leadership supports the initiative.
“We have started the training of hawkers and we will issue them with licences allowing them to trade in milk legally. The purpose of this is to ensure that we eliminate cases of adulterated milk in the market,” the dairy board said in an earlier interview.
In the last three years, the regulator has been carrying out media campaigns to urge Kenyans to stop consuming unprocessed milk. On average, the price of a 500ml processed milk goes for Sh50 while the same quantity in raw form sells at Sh35.
Currently, vendors are selling unpasteurised milk to consumers and the government has failed to tame the illegal trade by using laws in the dairy Act that outlaws the business.
Over the recent past, cases of adulterated milk in the market have become rampant, a move that has forced Kenya Dairy Board to crack the whip on some of the selling points to curb the menace.
More than 50 per cent of the total milk is sold through informal channels with processors controlling just a small fraction of the commodity.
Processors have been complaining of stiff competition from hawkers saying they are driving them out of business by denying them supplies from farmers.
Among items on offer from the Poland government are milk chilling and bulking facilities, milking machines, liquid nitrogen plant, milk quality testing machines for the Kenya Dairy Board and cold storage facilities for meat.
