Draft law seeks to streamline resilience of livestock sector
By KNA, May 18, 2023The State Department for Livestock is finalising public participation for the proposed Animal Production Professionals and Technicians Bill (APPT) 2023.
Two stakeholders’ consultation forums have been conducted in Nyanza and Rift Valley regions with the State Department anticipating to wrap up the exercise in June.
The draft bill provides a legal framework for the training, regulation and licensing of livestock production professionals and technicians and aims to bring sanity to the animal production sector. “The bill will be used to regulate training, registration and licensing of animal production professionals and technicians and regulation of the standards and practice of the animal production profession,” said Principal Secretary (PS) Harry Kimtai in a speech read on his behalf by the Director of Livestock Production Bishar Elmi.
He revealed that the livestock subsector currently is operating in an environment dogged with challenges that, include a lack of animal welfare standards in the livestock industry, increasing degradation of rangelands ecosystems and uncontrolled use of antibiotics.
The PS further stressed the need to ensure that animal production is seen as a true top-level profession; where both public and private stakeholders understand the essential role played by designated animal production professionals and technicians.
“The animal production profession has limited regulatory policies in-service provision and faces numerous animal health, livestock production and marketing challenges because it is dominated by unqualified service providers who operate freely without being regulated by any legal provision and mechanism,’’ said PS Kimtai.
Evans Makokha, Chairman of the Taskforce said the bill will be used in the implementation of the livestock policy. “This bill has been thought out because of the non-regulation of the livestock industry. It will guide the government on employment opportunities for the youth,” he said.