While ‘food mile’ mania continues to sweep Britain, Kenya’s exporting community is becoming more organised in its attempts to shift the focus back to ‘fair miles’.
A team of five senior Kenyan government officers and private sector players are set to meet executives of Tesco over the issue.
Kenyan permament secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Dr Romano Kiome, said the ministry has prepared a paper which articulates the Government’s position on the matter, to be presented at the meeting
The development comes after Tesco threatened to reduce procurement of horticultural produce from Kenya due to carbon emissions concerns.
Kiome said that although environmental concerns cannot be ignored, the campaign is fuelled more by business rivalry than environmental concerns.
"Carbon emission from planes exporting the foodstuff to Europe is far less than the gases emitted by European farmers growing flowers in green houses," Kiome said during a media briefing in Nairobi.
The Kenyans argue that labelling would effectively be a ‘non-tariff barrier’, as prohibited under the WTO.
