Assessing the Status of Food Safety Management Systems for Fresh Produce Production in East Africa: Evidence from Certified Green Bean Farms in Kenya and Noncertified Hot Pepper Farms in Uganda

Abstract

The farms of fresh produce farmers are major sources of food contamination by microbiological organisms and chemical pesticides. In view of their choice for farming practices, producers are influenced by food safety requirements. This study analyzes the role of food safety standard certification toward the maturity of food safety management systems (FSMS) in the primary production of fresh produce. Kenya and Uganda are two East African countries that export green beans and hot peppers, respectively, to the European Union but have contrasting features in terms of agricultural practices and certification status. In the fresh produce chain, a diagnostic instrument for primary production was used to assess context factors, core control and assurance activities, and system output to measure the performance of FSMS for certified green bean farms in Kenya and noncertified hot pepper farms in Uganda. Overall, our findings show that in Uganda, noncertified hot pepper farms revealed only a "basic level of control and assurance" activities in their FSMS, which was not satisfactory, because no insight into potential pesticide microbial contamination was presented by these farmers. On the other hand, certified green bean farms in Kenya had an "average level of control and assurance," providing insight into the delivered food safety and quality by the farmers. Farm size did not impact the maturity level of FSMS. This study confirms the role played by food safety standard certification toward the maturity of FSMS implemented in developing countries and demonstrates the possibility of Ugandan farms to upgrade agricultural practices in the fresh produce sector.

Shift in performance of food safety management systems in supply chains: case of green bean chain in Kenya versus hot pepper chain in Uganda

“…Detailed data analysis of the results for the farms in Kenya and Uganda were described and discussed by Nanyunja et al and were applied in this paper to introduce the chain perspective into the fresh produce supply chain. A visualization of the obtained dataset is illustrated in Fig.…”

“…Based on the scores of the individual indicators, mean scores were calculated and transformed to assigned scores per interviewed company (Table ) . Frequency distributions over the different situations of context riskiness, or levels in FSMS activities and system output of the responding farms or trading companies, were calculated.…”

Influence of food safety culture on food handler behaviour and food safety performance of food processing organisations

“…(World Health Organization, 2015), where a third of the global foodborne-related deaths occur (WHO, 2016). These economies face difficulties in the adoption of FSMS (Griffith et al, 2017;Macheka et al, 2013;Nanyunja et al, 2015) as well as in the assurance of food safety (Kussaga et al, 2013). In 2017-2018, a Listeriosis outbreak emanating from a meat processing company in South Africa resulted in 978 illnesses and 183 deaths, putting 15 countries at risk (World Health Organization, 2018), thus revealing deficiencies in the core control and assurance activities such as lack of preventive measures, monitoring systems to detect pathogens, verification activities, and lack of hygiene training (Boatemaa et al, 2019).…”

“…external company environment), particularly food safety governance (i.e. characteristics of the regulatory environment and enforcement practices), plays a role in food safety performance (Kirezieva et al, 2015a;Kussaga et al, 2013;Nanyunja et al, 2015). Several authors also hypothesised that food safety governance could shape the FS-culture of an organisation (De Boeck et al, 2017;Taylor, 2011).…”

“…Several authors also hypothesised that food safety governance could shape the FS-culture of an organisation (De Boeck et al, 2017;Taylor, 2011). In many transition economies, food safety legislation and its enforcement are weak and underdeveloped (Kirezieva et al, 2015b;Kussaga et al, 2014a;Kussaga et al, 2013;Nanyunja et al, 2015), which could constrain the development of FSMS and negatively impact FS-culture. This study therefore aims to investigate whether food companies operating under the same national context but varying in product riskiness differ in their prevailing FSculture.…”