Commercialized supply of training and certification to improve quality and safety of animal products and exploit market demand

Livestock offers many opportunities for improving livelihoods. Market mechanisms to overcome market barriers and quality assurance for animal source foods (ASF) enhances these opportunities. Health risk and market demand information in the eastern Africa and elsewhere has revealed the following:
- ASF health risks are often over played and are largely eliminated through cooking or boiling.
- Boosting the image of livestock products as healthy has benefits that consumers are willing to pay premium price for.
- Training and certification (T&C) allow a balance on strict implementation of regulations, which creates strong incentives for markets not to avoid them due to the costs of compliance. It also promotes market access.
Informal markets, small volumes and largely generic products make product differentiation difficult.  This stifles innovation towards value addition in response to market signals. Certification, for which training is a prerequisite, provides a differentiation mechanism in such market settings. Policymakers also require well-documented justification for departures from prevailing procedures towards the informal sector. Rules to protect public health in such settings are often unrealistic in that, while they significantly limit market access, they are not based on locally derived information.
T&C provides an appropriate level of justification in this context by addressing two key problems— the need to bridge the gap between regulated and unregulated markets and the need to overcome ASF safety concerns. Addressing these problems through T&C has been shown to tackle safety concerns and bridge the regulatory gap, while creating employment and providing greater access to quality nutrition for the poor.