Shout out dairy farmers success story

There is a distinctly fatal, almost cynical tone adopted by most Cabinet ministers when faced with rising anger over matters within their docket.It is one thing to admit Government policies are wanting, but quite another to repeat the mantra of your predecessors without offering something new.There appears to be an inbuilt inertia within Government to sort out the problems facing the livestock sector that includes dairy farmers.Last year, drought ravaged the country, wiping out pasture and decimating livestock numbers.Milk was suddenly in short supply and prices shot up, mainly to the benefit of the handful of milk processors.Then came the rains and, suddenly, the country is flowing with milk, so much so that even the Government is ‘overwhelmed’ by the success of dairy farmers.This is deplorable. The Kenya Dairy Board has done some excellent work in educating farmers and trying to boost consumption of boiled milk. Its efforts to bring the traditional, informal milk markets into the mainstream are especially commendable.Research has proven that the quality of milk sold by mobile milk traders is not significantly different from those with fixed premises and licenses, and that they can benefit from training to improve quality.Kenya produced 400 million litres of milk last year, 265 million more litres than it produced in 2002. This is largely due to interventions in the dairy sector, including use of exotic cattle genes to improve dairy cattle, revival of New KCC and investment in extension services.Oft-repeated mantraBut as is often the case, not everyone has been pulling in the same direction. The announcement by the Government yesterday that it was ‘overwhelmed’ by the flow of milk was expected.The same Government peddles the oft-repeated mantra of plans to build cooling plants to take in more milk and turn the rest into milk powder — which can then be reprocessed into milk when there is a shortage.It is also the same minister who led a disastrous effort to aid livestock farmers during the debilitating drought last year, when dying cattle were dumped outside Kenya Meat Commission factory gates in Athi River.The stench of rotting carcasses will forever assail the nostrils of the town’s residents, a reminder of what happens when politicians play games with the truth.Minister Mohamed Kuti’s prescriptions failed the test long ago. The problem facing the dairy industry goes beyond local capacity.Dairy farmers need to be able to access external markets to sell the milk that local milk processors and the larger informal markets cannot absorb. Without this option, they remain enslaved to the few milk processors and vagaries of increasingly unpredictable weather.Although dairy co-operatives play a significant role in boosting dairy development, and delivering services to farmers, they cannot easily tap into the strong demand for traditional products and raw milk and generally remain tied to demand for formally processed products.Milk processors, on the other hand, operate as businesses to make profits. They will not make more milk powder than they can sell, so asking New KCC to do so makes little sense.What is needed is a mix of market channels, including formal private sector and small-scale traditional. And it would do the dairy industry a world of good.Larger marketsAs chief policymaker, it would be wrong for Government to assume the role of smallholders in the dairy sector is ending and that efforts should now be made to support larger-scale, "more efficient" milk production to meet growing consumer demand. Dairy co-operatives have a critical role to play in milk procurement systems and in times of significant local milk surpluses that small-scale informal milk markets cannot handle, they can provide a route to access the larger formal markets.The drop in consumption of raw milk can explain another reason for the glut. Due to urbanisation, more Kenyans now consume processed milk in all its forms, than those who drink raw, fresh milk.This change in lifestyle means when milk processors are stretched to capacity, farmers’ options are limited.

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