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{
    "id": 1488318,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1488318/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 415,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Molo, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kuria Kimani",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Speaker for giving me the opportunity to contribute to the Food and Feed Safety Control Co-ordination Bill (National Assembly Bill No.21 of 2023). This Bill provides several provisions, one being providing a regulatory framework in which it establishes a comprehensive system to regulate food and safety that covers all aspects of the food chain, from production all the way to consumption. This Bill also provides for a Food and Feed Safety Authority. This will be an authority that is mandated to do inspections, enforcements, and setting of standards for the quality of food. This Bill also provides for safety standards, licensing and registration and, most importantly, inspection and enforcement. This Bill is very critical for consumer protection. The Bill emphasises the protection of consumers by ensuring that food and feed products in the market are safe and of high quality. This includes the provisions for proper labelling to provide consumers with adequate information about the products they purchase. At a time when there has been a lot of uptakes of processed foods, it is very important that those foods are clearly labelled to show their contents, whether they are carbohydrates or proteins and all those other nutrients, so that we can ensure that our population is fed not just on the right foods, but also on the correct quantities of the particular nutrients that should be served on the foods. It is not just food for human consumption, but also for feeds. As a poultry and a dairy farmer, one of the challenges is getting the correct quality of feeds. You are sold feeds that are supposed to increase milk production because of a particular content that they are supposed to have, like the protein content, only for you to feed your cows and realise that the production is not even improving. The content that is said to be in those feeds is false. In poultry farming, when the chicks are small, they are fed a particular diet of food. As they grow into six weeks, you change the diet for them. When they start laying, their diet is different. If you are producing either laying chicken or broilers, the diet is different. Therefore, it is very important that we have an authority that checks the quality of that, so that our farmers can be certain that the feeds they give to their animals have the right quality. If this Bill is passed into law, it will strengthen Kenya's food safety management systems, and will provide a legal foundation for ensuring that food and feed products meet international safety standards. This would benefit consumers, businesses, and also Kenya's position in global agriculture. There has been a global push to have, not just countries being in a position to produce food for their population, but also for the quality of food. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}