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The Daily Journal |
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Kenyan Dairy Farmers Flundering By Katy Salmon Kiambu, Kenya - Kiambu has high potential. Soils are good, rain fall reliable and there’s a strong market as we’re only 20 minutes drive from Nairobi,’’ says Joseph Ngugi, district livestock production officer with Kenya’s Ministry of Livestock Development. Dairy farming is big business here, especially with the ever-worsening state of the coffee industry. Kiambu district, at the outskirts of Nairobi, has some 118,000 cattle, 80 percent of which are owned by small-scale farmers. But - like so many other things in Kenya - ordinary people’s hard labour is going to waste because of corrupt and inefficient management. “If I’m put as leader of a company that belongs to many people, I don’t feel it’s my business. I’ll work inefficiently, steal a bit. That’s the mentality in Kenya,’’ says Lucy Chege, a dairy officer with the Ministry of Livestock De-velopment. Since the collapse of Kenya Cooperative Creameries (KCC), a giant state-run milk processing company, Kenya’s dairy farmers have been at a loss to find reliable buyers for their milk. KCC was run into the ground by high-level looting in the mid-1990s. It still owes farmers millions of shillings in unpaid dues. When KCC collapsed, farmers were forced to search for their own market outlets. At first, 69-year-old Douglas Muchaba - who has seven cows on his five-acre plot - turned to Ndumberi Dairy Co-operative, one of the largest of 14 co-operatives in Kiambu district. But when “they started misbehaving with money’’, once again, Muchaba was forced to “run away’’. Four months passed without seeing any of the proceeds from his milk and he couldn’t afford to keep his farm running, feed his cows or pay his workers. “Now I just sell to whoever comes,’’ he says. “The problem with selling locally is there’s no ready market. You might be selling to a hotel in town and one day you find it closed. Then you are in trouble.’’ The majority of farmers rely on hawkers, who just turn up at the gate. They pay much better rates than the co-operatives - around 20 shillings (0,25 US dollars) a litre, as opposed to 15 shillings (0,20 US dollars) But too many are fly-by-night operators. “Some disappear after two weeks. There are no permanent buyers,’’ says Muchaba. Although he does not produce a great deal - 30 to 50 litres a day from seven cows - Muchaba cannot always sell it. He says he has never had to throw milk away, but the family often ends up keeping a few litres in the fridge having to drink it themselves. “You can never be sure with hawkers. They can disappear tomorrow,’’ agrees another farmer, 56-year-old Jospeh Kariuki Nganga, who has learned from bitter experience. “Now I make sure they pay me every day. It’s Cash on Delivery. They have to leave the money if they want to carry away the milk.’’ Others stick with the co-operatives despite their poor prices and unreliable payments. “It’s because of the other benefits they get,’’ explains Chege. “They get loans for school fees, cash for farm inputs.’’ Given that cows can cost around 30,000 shil-lings (385 US dollars), dairy farmers are not the poorest of the poor. But they are struggling to make ends meet. They can no longer afford to educate their children. In a shrinking economy, school fees are a constant source of stress for most families. Access to credit is a major problem. Nganga says he would like to take out a bank loan so he can irrigate his land and grow enough napier grass to feed his animals. But the interest rate for commercial bank loans is a punitive 25 to 30 percent. “There’s no affordable credit. If you take a bank loan, you’re sure to lose your title deed,’’ says Ngugi. Being so close to Nairobi, there is intense pressure for land in Kiambu. The average plot is a tiny 0.8 hectares. One farmer has 50 cows on a quarter acre plot. This means that all animal feed must be bought. Napier grass is the staple. Farmers also buy industrial by-products, like waste from barley, from Kenya Breweries. The Kenyan government, in conjunction with International Livestock Research Institute, Kenya Agricultural Research Institute and the British government’s Department for International Development, offers help to farmers through its Smallholders Dairy Project. “Our role here is extension, to pass the best combination of technical information and materials to help farmers increase production levels,’’ says Ngugi. For example, research by the University of Nairobi shows that milk production increases by 500 litres if lactating cows are given 8 kilos of dairy meal a day for three months, as opposed to the usual method of giving 2 kilos a day for 10 months. “They appreciate our advice, but they often can’t afford it,” laments Ngugi. Although extension officers have told him that dairy meal feed is much richer in minerals, Muchaba only uses machicha, or barley by-products, because it is cheaper. In the past, government extension officers used to visit all farmers but Ngugi says it produced poor results. “We tried to push what we felt they needed but they never needed it,’’ he says. Their programmes are now demand-driven. “We want to empower the farmers. Now they come to us if they want something. We have seen a very good impact in a short time,’’ says Ngugi. But Muchaba now has much less contact with the dairy experts. “I’m used to my cows,’’ the ageing man says. “I only go to them, if there’s a crisis like foot and mouth. Or for artificial insemination.’’ He sees the farm extension as an emergency service even though it’s free. “If you’re not sick you don’t go to the hospital,’’ says Muchaba. Chege says Muchaba “should come to the office and seek advice. It’s
going to take time before they realise they need to come for advice.’’
But for most farmers, the main problem is not to maximise production
but to find a reliable buyer who will pay on time. |
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