Business Daily (Nairobi)
James Thuo Gathii
29 April 2008
column
The Minister for Livestock, Mohammed Kuti, has announced that the European Union has banned its 4,000 tonne quota of meat imports from Kenya.
The ban follows inability of Kenya to control livestock diseases, including the Rift Valley Fever, Foot and Mouth disease as well as Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR). These transboundary livestock diseases have the potential to devastate the livelihood of farmers everywhere because of their easy transmissibility.
Dr Kuti has been appointed just at the right moment with close to three million livestock at risk of getting infected with PPR. Some of the challenges include the receptivity of the virus in our wildlife. I want to address the trade related challenges of the PPR threat.
The PPR epidemic has caught Kenya snoozing on many fronts. First, notwithstanding our modest EU meat quota, Kenya's veterinary laboratories are also inadequately prepared for dealing with the epidemic. When the minister visited the premises of the Kabete Veterinary Laboratories, it was revealed the facility had only half the necessary workforce. Kenya trains almost sufficient expertise for its livestock needs.
However, it bodes ill for the government if it cannot pay enough to attract this workforce. Further, the decrease in spending on extension services and the availability of technically qualified staff in arid and semi-arid areas most hit by the infections works against our livestock farmers. To add insult to injury, the government is continuing to retire its most experienced extension officers when they ought to be redeployed to the field to help arrest the crisis.
Second, when the government excitedly revived the Kenya Meat Commission (KMC) plant, few noted how this direct government involvement in production and marketing of meat would affect its ability to fulfil regulatory and advisory functions. While the KMC idea is sound in principle, we must not forget our government has been quick to pour millions of shillings into such projects at the expense of agriculture and the livestock sector in particular.
The incentives that go to the agricultural sector and in particular to livestock farmers pale sharply in contrast to those given to Export Processing Zone companies. Yet, we often hear the hackneyed argument that agriculture is the mainstay of the Kenyan economy.
Third, if the country's preparedness for the livestock pandemic is wanting, so too is the legal framework for our livestock sector. Today, veterinary field is governed through a confusing array of laws, including the Animal Diseases Act, the Dangerous Drugs Act, the Veterinary Surgeons Act as well as the Pharmacy and Poisons Act.
Then there is the Kenya Bureau of Standards that will now require a mark of quality of all Kenyan exports, this will further affect the livestock export sector.
These laws certainly need to be re-examined to bring them in line with not only the best veterinary practice but also with a new livestock policy.
Fourth, in terms of the ability of the Kenya Bureau of Standards to engage in world class research and set internationally acceptable standards, this is a requirement of the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement.
In fact, that agreement requires national standards bodies to accept and comply with a set of good practices. This would ensure the benchmarks the Kenya Bureau of Standards requires of the country's exports and imports comport to WTO obligations and do not act as barriers to trade.
Ultimately, in terms of Kenya's trade policy, Dr Kuti needs to liaise with the Ministry of Trade.
This is because when a foreign country bans an export from a WTO member country based on a standard to protect plant or human life or health, it is required to ensure that the ban is based on a scientific basis and is pursuant to a scientific risk assessment.
It would, therefore, be a matter of course in imposing the ban that the EU communicated these reasons to Kenyan authorities. Kenya can also request this information from the WTO. Significantly, the SPS Agreement provides that developed country members ought to give developing country WTO members assistance to enable them to comply with the requirements of the agreement. Again, one would hope the government is closely working with the EU on this.
The fact that the new government line up has a Secretary of External Trade may signal the government's renewed commitment to use trade rights both in the WTO and in regional trade agreements.
Having a sub-cabinet officer who will work with other relevant ministries on all matters related to external trade is a welcome development. It is hopefully another step towards the continued strengthening of Kenya's trade capacity and coordination among all export sectors, including in livestock.
The livestock sector is crucial to many Kenyans in areas where engaging in agriculture is beset by myriad problems. In the spirit of the new coalition government, one would hope that these challenges become a central plan of our agricultural policy.
Reinvesting and renewing the agricultural economy, especially in arid and semi-arid areas, must be a central plank of this new era. In doing so, the country's livestock sector will get the kind of investment and attention they deserve as much as their counterparts in industry and crop agriculture.
Pro Gathii is the Governor George E. Pataki Professor of International Commercial Law at Albany Law School.
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