Smallholder Training in Kenya Becomes EUREPGAP Model

The USAID-funded Fintrac HDC program provides smallholders in Kenya with the technology and market information necessary to increase and sustain yields and incomes. The program also helps smallholders obtain EUREPGAP certification, thus ensuring a continued presence in the European market.

In early 2004, when HDC was started, it was clear to Kenya’s producer associations and government agencies that the implementation of the EUREPGAP protocol was vital for the 50,000-plus growers—responsible for more than 60 percent of Kenya’s fresh produce exports to the EU—to stay in business. It was also clear to HDC Director Steve New that this implementation depended on extensive and intensive training as well as a clear message to smallholders that compliance was achievable.

Fintrac HDC subsequently designed an approach to smallholder certification that clarified confusion surrounding the protocol. HDC outlined a cooperative strategy, adapted EUREPGAP’s 210 clauses to meet smallholders’ capabilities, opened dialogue with the EUREPGAP management committee and calculated the cost of compliance. HDC then adopted a group certification approach to training which covered the chain from sensitization, documentation systems, internal auditing and on to final certification.

While many programs to this point in Kenya had devoted serious efforts to sensitize and train stakeholders of the importance of EUREPGAP, very few outgrowers actually completed the final step of obtaining certification. Furthermore, individual and national costs for group certification had not been analyzed.

By starting a program to train producers and teach them how to actually implement EUREPGAP, Fintrac HDC was able to determine that the national cost of certifying a minimum of 50,000 smallholders would not exceed $25 million—a small cost relative to Kenya’s horticultural export industry, which reached $600 million in 2004.

The program was implemented through training partnerships with four major export companies buying from thousands of outgrowers and through various Kenyan service providers with skills in quality management, food safety systems, group organization and certification. By partnering with these institutions, HDC was able to train farmers on general regulations, control points, compliance criteria and good agricultural practices.

This practical and commercial approach provided solutions to some of the more difficult aspects of compliance and allowed EUREPGAP to be implemented by Kenyan smallholders without excessive costs.

In February 2005, EUREPGAP Chairman Nigel Garbutt spent a week in Kenya visiting small-scale growers and large export farms to review the efforts being made. The visit resulted in a plan of action with the Fresh Produce Exporters Association of Kenya (FPEAK) that included benchmarking the KenyaGAP protocol with EUREPGAP.

“Informing worldwide markets of the equiv-alence between these two protocols, once it is achieved, will be a major marketing advantage for Kenya,” said FPEAK Chairman Hasit Shah.

It was also agreed that the Kenyan National Working Group will send a representative to future EUREPGAP Technical Committee meetings to provide input for the benefit of all LDCs on compliance implementation for smallholders, based on the Kenya model.