The State Department for Livestock is finalizing 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 in Mombasa.
The PS 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.
Director of Livestock Production, Bishar Elmi on his part said the drafting of the bill is a huge milestone for the State Department of Livestock with the process of drafting the bill having begun 15 years ago.
“It’s the first time that we are coming up with a professional body that will focus more on issues on animal production professionals.
Elmi added that if the bill will be passed by the National Assembly it will ensure animal breeding is done professionally and also provide regulation of the livestock value chain.
The bill comes at a time when farmers are reeling from losses due to the prolonged drought epochs witnessed in the country.
Elmi divulged that the country had four seasons of rainfall failure that resulted in the loss of 2.6M cattle equivalent to Sh50B.
Evans Makokha, Chairman of the Taskforce of the bill said the bill will be used in the implementation of the livestock policy.
He said, “This bill has been thought out because of the non-regulation of the livestock industry. It is going to guide the government on employment opportunities for the youth.”
Samuel Mbuku, Chairman of the Animal Production Society of Kenya, said there is a lot of transformation in livestock production, thus the need to regulate actors in the livestock sector to realize a more competitive, resilient and productive sector.
By Sadik Hassan
