Call to strengthen food safety processes

NAIROBI: A Kenyan scientist on Saturday urged African states to strengthen sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) processes as a means to boost food safety that is key to tackle hunger on the continent.

Dennis Rangi, director-general of the Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International (Cabi), said the processes were capable of improving food value chain and trade links on the continent.

“This is the only way that we can help improve plant health and food safety on the continent,” said Rangi during an interview ahead of a Cabi African member governments meeting scheduled to be held in Botswana from February 25 to 28.

Rangi noted that the rigorous application of such international SPS standards ensured production, processing and trade of safe and high-quality food products.

He said that through the processes, agricultural productivity would increase, value would be added to the goods, rural economies would be diversified and small household incomes would rise.

The scientist said that lack of information, knowledge and institutional capacity led to the inability of countries to reduce hazards and gain access to lucrative markets despite the World Trade Organization having set out basic rules for the use of SPS measures.

Rangi said that in some cases, countries had implied that the phytosanitary threats had been mistakenly overestimated, creating unintentional trade barriers.

“Inefficiencies in regulatory agencies may further increase the cost of trading – creating so-called procedural obstacles,” Rangi said.