Food safety regulation in Tanzania's informal dairy sector : enablers and constraints to alternative policy approaches

Abstract

Food safety systems in agricultural value chains safeguard the wholesomeness of foods consumed, yet they often fail in developing countries. The agricultural value chains in developing countries are often characterized by the dominance of informal food markets which lack food safety regulations. The informal markets elicit food safety concerns among consumers and government authorities. Yet, even alternative food safety interventions by governments in the informal markets have had a poor uptake. Little research exists on these failures from a capacity, incentives, and coordination perspective. This research addresses this gap by asking: What challenges limit the food safety regulation and formalization of Tanzania’s dairy sector under the current policy framework, and what has limited the success of an alternative policy approach to food safety and formalization of the dairy sector in Tanzania? Given its overall informal market and food safety gaps, Tanzania’s dairy sector was chosen as a case study. The research adopted a pragmatic mixed-methods grounded theory approach. Data were collected through a semi-structured survey, key informant interviews, and document review. Deductive analysis revealed a failure of the training and certification (T&C) intervention to achieve the anticipated intervention outcomes. An inductive thematic analysis revealed seven main themes explaining the failures of the food safety policy approaches in Tanzania’s dairy sector: 1. Lack of autonomy in decision-making among policymakers 2. Multiple and overlapping governance roles among policy makers 3. Inadequate financial capacity among value chain actors and policy makers 4. Incongruence between food safety regulation and the cultural norms and beliefs 5. Lack of knowledge of the regulatory requirements among the traders 6. Lack of technical capacity among value chain actors and policy makers 7. Lack of adequate infrastructure among value chain actors and policy makers A key finding was that the food safety policy approaches used to address food safety and informality in Tanzania’s dairy sector were mismatched with the capacities and needs of the value chain actors and regulatory agencies. The implications for designing and reviewing such food safety management systems include the following: The core incentive for the training and certification intervention needs to be reviewed from a government-enforced policy requirement to a value chain actors-driven self-regulation incentive. Informal sector value chain actors must be facilitated to access credit facilities to acquire appropriate milk handling equipment. Lastly, the intervention financing model needs to be altered; government needs to take up the training costs to lift the cost burden from value chain actors, and where impossible, a training of trainers’ approach could be used within trader associations where trainers train fellow association members for free to eliminate the costs of training individual traders. The training approach must also change from the traditional lecture-type model to the more effective adult learning approach. Adult learning is grounded on three key foundations; andragogy (student-directed learning), self-directed learning and transformative learning, which results in a transformation of perspectives among adult learners. Additionally, adult learning considers social perspectives and contextual influences on learning.