The Rwanda Bureau of Standards could soon reach its full capacity as far as ensuring safety in food products is concerned, thanks to a $1m (about Rwf685m) funding from The Netherlands.

The money will help enhance the capacity of the body’s micro-biology research department, and mainly to conduct collaborative research, develop post-harvest and mechanisation standards and train technical staff over the next three years, Antoine Mukunzi, the RBS project co-ordinator, said.

He said about Rwf200m will be invested in collaborative research about micro-biological risks in vegetables and food processing, Rwf55.5m will be for post-harvest and mechanisation research and Rwf17m will be used for training staff, among others.

"The research will enable us identify risks and help find ways to guard against them to avoid food contamination in the production chain. This will help us to ensure food safety,” Mukunzi, who is also the RBS director of testing laboratories, said.

Wycliffe Kagisha, the standards body organic chemistry lead officer, said capacity building is vital as it helps equip staff with skills to develop better standards and reduce food wastage.

"It’s essential to invest in human capacity development because of the change of technology and constant review of the existing standards, as well as development of new ones.”

RBS also plans to acquire new high-tech laboratory testing equipment, including wine analysis machine. 

Dr. Mark Cyubahiro Bagabe, the RBS director general, recently told reporters that the body would develop more standards, provide technical assistance to stakeholders and work with enforcers in the food sector as part of the strategies to reduce contamination in processed food by 80 per cent by 2018. 

The standards body recently closed down two milk processing plants for producing contaminated yoghurt.