Milk firm to increase farmers’ profits

Milk processor Brookside has said commercialisation of the dairy enterprise is key to increasing incomes for smallholder farmers.

The processor said it will work with dairy groups across the country to pursue a more market oriented approach that seeks to have more smallholder farmers sell their milk through formal channels to up their earnings.

John Gethi, Brookside’s director of milk procurement, commended dairy farmers in Narok County for forming groups to earn more from bulk milk sales to the processor. Brookside has set up raw milk cooling stations at Ololulung’a, Sogoo and Kilgoris in the county.

“In the past, dairy farming in parts of Narok County was practised more as a subsistence undertaking, but we are now seeing more farmers joining dairy groups and selling their milk to formal sector players. This has made milk a source of regular family income in the county,” Gethi said in Trans Mara.

He said farmers in Trans Mara sub-county, who supply the processor through Enkorienito Dairy co-operative society, saw their earnings jump from Sh9.6 million at the society’s inception last year to Sh23.3 million last month.
“This confirms that there is benefit in thrift by having farmers pool resources and do bulk sales of their milk,” he said.

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“As a main market for farmers’ milk, our interventions include working with raw milk suppliers to increase financial viability of smallholder farms along the value chain. We are also constantly reminding farmers to increase the production volume of each cow kept as one way of increasing earnings,” Gethi said.

“Increasing the farm-gate price of a litre of milk, alone, is not economically viable for the farmer if the daily production on the farm stagnates, or worse, falls. There is more sense in increasing the daily volumes of milk sold to processors.”

Alice Kantai, a member of Enkorienito Dairy Co-operative, said delivering milk to a formal sector player like Brookside assures farmers of income.
“Many Maasai women in Trans Mara have ventured into dairy since processors are making regular payments for deliveries made to them. We are able to finance our domestic obligations, besides making investments out of the income,” Mrs Kantai said.