A milk vendor serves customers at a Nyeri shop last year. The Kenya Dairy Board has banned hawking of raw milk. FILE
What you need to know:
The Kenya Dairy Board says rules are meant to ensure consumers get hygienic products from licensed vendors.
Small-scale dairy farmers are crying foul after the Kenya Dairy Board (KDB) banned unlicensed milk vending.
The farmers say they opt to sell their produce house to house and in small shops in their neighbourhoods due to low prices set by milk processors.
“We are small-scale farmers trying to make ends meet and the ban will cripple us, especially now that schools are almost opening and children need school fees,” said Paul Sitienei, a dairy farmer from Kapseret.
But the board defended its move saying it is mandated to ensure milk consumers get high standard products from licensed vendors who have undergone health certification.
Speaking in Eldoret on Wednesday when the ban on mobile sale of raw milk was issued, KDB North Rift Branch manager Pius Cheserek said the directive will save consumers from buying unhygienic milk.
Mr Cheserek said close to 15,000 litres of raw milk are traded daily by mobile venders to customers within Eldoret town and its neighbourhood, and the handling poses big health risks to consumers.
“Risks spun all the way from the milking process through transportation and finally the equipment used for storage. Most local and mobile sellers may not be very keen on hygiene as there is no regulator cutting in at that level,” said Mr Cheserek.
Some of the diseases that consumers are exposed to due to poor hygiene include typhoid, tuberculosis and brucellosis.
The Public Health Act section 131 (2) highlights offences in regards to handling of foodstuff. It gives regulations on collection, preparation, manufacturing and exposing of edible consumables.
According to the Act, anyone handling food should be subjected to scrutiny on health and thereafter issued with a licence.
Mr Cheserek said adulteration of milk through addition of water to raise volumes and sale of near-stale milk have been the prime cases experienced by domestic consumers.
He said that tampering of milk is an offence and that the board had teamed up with local authorities and the Kenya Bureau of Standards to arrest the menace.
