Producer organizations, social inclusion and food safety

Abstract

This work is part of a PhD project on producer organizations, social inclusion and food safety in the Kenyan dairy chains, carried under the research program “Local and International business collaboration for productivity and Quality Improvement in Dairy chains in Southeast Asia and East Africa (LIQUID).” The research program was funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research’s (NWO) Science for Global Development department (WOTRO) through the Food and Business Global Challenges Programme (GCP). The data for this PhD project were collected from 595 dairy smallholder farmers in Kenya consisting of 395 members of POs and 200 non-members. Information collected covered topics on the socioeconomic characteristics of farmers such as age, sex, assets ownership and farmers' participation in decision-making in POs. Further, to understand issues of women empowerment, information on ownership, control and access to resources and opportunities was collected as well as workload and time management. Food safety topics like environmental cleaning, cleaning of milk and milking vessels, animal health and hygiene milking practice were asked. Information on food safety was supplemented with key informant interviews with experts in the dairy value chain who identified appropriate food safety measures applied in the Kenyan context and ranked the importance of food safety measures in ensuring milk safety