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Food fortification is the addition of micronutrients to foods. It is one of the interventions for the prevention and control of micronutrients deficiencies in Kenya. This study aimed to determine the compliance levels of maize meals to the national aflatoxin thresholds and the food fortification standards in Kenya. Maize meal samples (597) were obtained from local markets outlets in 10 Counties which were purposively selected based on the high number of millers and high consumption of maize meal. The collected samples were sorted by brands and duplicates identified using batch numbers. Randomly selected samples of diverse brands per county, which were representative of the analytical lot, were homogenized using a blender before drawing the analytical sample. A total of 312 analytical samples were prepared. Samples were analyzed for aflatoxin using Elisa, vitamins A and B complex using HPLC and minerals using AAS. Overall, 14.4% of the maize samples had total aflatoxin levels above the safety threshold of 10ppb, with some samples having very high levels (>100ppb). Kiambu County had the highest (29.8%) number of samples with aflatoxin content above the maximum threshold. Overall compliance to maize fortification standard was at 28.0%. Kwale County had the highest compliance to fortification standards at 38.9% while Kisumu County had the lowest (20.8%). Compared with earlier surveillance done by the Ministry of Health in 2017, there was an improvement in compliance to fortification standards from 16.0% to 28.0%. Aflatoxin was detected across the 10 counties as an indication of food safety concerns. Compliance with food fortification standards is still low despite all the efforts put by both government and its partners. There is a need for concerted efforts to understand the main causes of the low compliance levels to develop targeted strategies for mitigation.

This paper conducts ex-ante impact assessments for policy interventions to promote amaranth value chains in Tanzania and Kenya. Amaranth is an underdeveloped, drought-resistant, and nutrition-rich crop used for human food, animal fodder, and ornamental purposes. Promoting amaranth value chains is a difficult task, given that amaranth is not a well-established commodity and has limited market outlets in the developing world at present. This paper provides a framework within which conduct scenario analysis of ways to promote amaranth value chains using system dynamics (SD). We constructed an integrated amaranth production and market model to evaluate the impact of producer adoption of improved production technologies (improved seed varieties), and changes in demand for amaranth products, on producer profits and planting behaviour. The results of our model show that the profitably upgrading and commercialising of amaranth value chains require multifaceted and chain-level interventions that improve supply- and demand-side conditions. Interventions that target only the supply side serve to increase amaranth production, but generate minor economic gain for producers.