Kenya Dairy Board suspends controversial plan to ban milk hawking

The Kenya Dairy Board has made a hasty retreat and suspended the proposed draft dairy regulations 2019, to allow for consultations and wider public participation.

Officials at the Kenya Dairy Board were Monday locked in a daylong meeting at their offices based at NSSF Building Nairobi. And after almost eight hours, the board announced the suspension of what was now turning out to be controversial proposed rules aimed at governing the dairy industry.

The proposed regulations, which have since been deleted from the regulators website, proposed ramifications for farmers trading in raw milk directly to consumers.

In a notice released late last week, Kenya Dairy Board noted several factors which had led to a review of the current regulations.

The factors included need to update current policies and regulations, rapidly changing technological innovations in the sector and consumer demands for quality and safe products.

The suspension of the proposed dairy regulations means good news to many small scale dairy farmers who had claimed that the proposed rules were aimed at eroding the gains they had made in the sector over the years.

The board has however refuted the notion that the rules were out to stifle the dairy sector, and maintains that it will not compromise the safety of consumers.