Bill: Farmers face losses of up to 70pc of exports
By George Kebaso, June 17, 2021George Kebaso @Morarak
More than half a million small-scale farmers of fresh producers stand to lose over 70 per cent of the Sh150 billion annual exports to Europe and allied markets if Parliament adopts a bill seeking to ban use of pesticides.
Producers who include vegetable, fruit, flowers and livestock farmers want Parliament to throw out a petition being pushed on the floor of the House through a private member’s motion.
The European Union (EU) has set maximum residue levels (MRLs) for pesticides in and on food products in a move it emphasises is meant to avoid health and environmental risks affiliated to pesticides.
Products containing more pesticides than allowed will be withdrawn from the European market.
MRLs can become stricter with new insights from Europe’s food safety authorities. Supermarket chains in the EU maintain the highest standards and generally demand 33 per cent to 100 per cent of the legal MRL.
The bloc is demanding that fresh producers should withdraw some 262 molecules from pesticides being used locally.
However, local producers of fresh farm produce argue that this move is aimed at closing the agricultural door for Kenya to the EU on moves to end modern agricultural technology, regardless of safety.
Speaking on behalf of over 500,000 producers, Okisegere Ojepat, Fresh Produce Consortium of Kenya CEO argues this is not about food safety because the EU does not offer an alternative.
He said if Parliament makes a mistake and passes the proposed changes, the ongoing agricultural revolution in Kenya will be disrupted, and crops will be exposed to various pests and diseases.
“If these demands are adopted, how are we going to survive; how are we going to deal with tuta absoluta (a highly destructive insect pest) in tomatoes, aphids in maize, potato blight in potatoes among others and even mosquitoes?” he posed.
Proposed changes
If Parliament passes the motion, currently awaiting its second reading, the producers fear that the proposed changes in it will affect the country’s agricultural policy. This, they said, will also see the automatic adoption of farming practices that are not favourable in Kenya.
“We growers at the Fresh Produce Consortium Kenya feel that there is a sinister motive in the proposed changes that are in the form of a blanket adoption of the European Union’s climate change strategy, and all its consequent implementations,” Ojepat told journalists in Nairobi yesterday. He argued that the petition in Parliament is sponsored by foreign and local non-governmental organisations for selfish reasons.
Ojepat said the producers are not opposed to the changes, but feel that the process should have been more consultative before it was taken to Parliament.
He said that for a country that is perennially a food deficit as Kenya, reduction of pesticides, will further result in further decline of its production capacity that stands at below 50 percent.
Croplife Kenya CEO, Eric Kimung’unyi feels that the bone of contention is in Kenya’s adoption of the CODEX, a food safety move, which the EU is not directly part of.
“CODEX is responsible for ensuring pesticides do not harm human health. It sets the global standards for each approved pesticide.
These are set through MRL that is safe on human food. The EU’s move then surprises all of us,” he said.