Why new farm regulations are recipe for disaster

The Ngilai community in Samburu county that has embarked in vegetable farming to address malnutrition. [Michael Saitoti, Standard]

The government’s planned “food safety” regulations that target vegetable farmers will be a disaster for more than three million farmers.

Each farmer will be required to obtain a licence for Sh10,000, in addition to the costs of complying with the new safety standards. 

Many fear that the net effect of the rule change will be the shoving of farmers from the vegetable market. Implementation will be haphazard and cruel. Many families will lose their source of livelihood.

Brokers will thrive and grab ever more of the value of produce from farmers. Underground trade in vegetable produce and associated illegalities will flourish.

Agricultural officers are poised to receive a windfall of bribes, as they conduct inspections of farms and ask for certifications related to soil and water safety. Nobody should be surprised when all these things come to pass.

An outstanding question is why the government chose this path. The answer lies in our perpetual inability to think through new policies. What exactly are we trying to achieve with this policy?

What is a reasonable timeline for its implementation? How should we phase its implementation?

Who will pay for the different components of the policy? What will be the net impact on both farmers and consumers? 

The government should provide the public with clear answers to these questions before implementing the proposed new regulations.

It is time we abandoned the habit of forging ahead with half-baked policies that end up breaking the same thing we are trying to fix.

We saw it with the fiasco that was the implementation of the Competency Based Curriculum. And we are most likely going to see it with the implementation of the proposed farm regulations. 

The core driver of policymaking should always be the desired net effects. For example, how can we increase farmers’ earnings, while also guaranteeing food security?

Yet for some odd reason, the government has for decades convinced itself that merely going through the motions of reform should be viewed as end in itself.

That is why we like to engage in constant reforms that introduce nothing but chaos, while paying little attention to actual improvements in outcomes. 

The last thing we want is a domestic vegetable market dominated by imports and brokers. Way too many of our households depend on farming for their living. 

-The writer is a professor at Georgetown University