Commercial small and medium-scale poultry farms are mushrooming in, and around urban centers driven by the objective to satisfy the demand of animal source food (ASF) of a growing population. These poultry farms have too often low biosecurity levels, which creates public health risks. In a recent survey conducted in Kiambu and Nairobi city counties1, with high urban characteristics, 60 percent of broiler farmers interviewed indicated that they slaughter chickens at farm and live bird markets; in nondesignated, non-licensed facilities or makeshift structures. This contravenes the existing Meat Control Regulations (2010), which provides for slaughter of animals for consumption to be carried out in a licensed facility, where staff comply with biosecurity and veterinary public health practices. The survey also indicated that slaughtering infrastructure is largely inadequate, with only 27 percent of interviewed actors having clean areas separate from unclean areas.
Half of the actors involved in slaughtering lack a valid food handler’s health certificate, which is a prerequisite for all food handlers; that veterinary inspectors do not regularly perform meat inspection, despite it being a cornerstone of public health as per the Kenya Meat Control Act2. Uninspected meat poses public health risks to
(i) slaughterers
(ii) consumers and
iii) the environment (e.g., hazards from contaminated animal by-products).
FAO, through the ASL 2050 project, in collaboration with county governments of Kiambu and Nairobi city counties, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MA&LD), developed an intervention focused on process-oriented certification for small to medium-scale poultry producers and slaughterers. FAO piloted a checklist (broiler units and slaughter slabs) with veterinary public health (VPH) practices from September 2022 to March 2023, among 50 farms. After examining the broiler farm practices and slaughter process and potential hazards and control measures, a checklist of 28 prioritized good practices and simple and workable examples of compliance and business considerations was then developed.
The overarching goal of the intervention is to contribute to improved slaughter hygiene, food safety, public health, and poultry business sustainability.
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