Brookside farmers rewards surge 32 to Sh303m

Brookside’s Emmanuel Kabaki hands Super Napier grass stems to Egerton University farm manager Salome Yano in Nakuru. April 5, 2024. [File Courtesy]

Dairy farmers contracted by market leader Brookside have a reason to smile after the processor announced a cash reward payout of over Sh303 million.

The amount, a half-year payout under a reward scheme operated by the processor, represents a 32 per cent growth over last year’s payout, during a similar period.

Emmanuel Kabaki, Brookside’s General Manager for milk procurement, said the amount will benefit dairy groups and individual farmers across the country who signed up for the programme and have been supplying raw milk to Brookside in the six-month period between 1st December 2024 to 31st May this year.

Kabaki said the farmers were rewarded for meeting agreed milk supply targets in both quantity and quality.

“The beneficiary farmer groups and individual suppliers signed up for our reward scheme and were given raw milk supply targets for both quality and quantity. We are rewarding these farmers as a recognition of their toil over the six-month period,” Kabaki said in a statement issued in Kitale.

The farmer reward scheme, pioneered by Brookside six years ago, seeks to appreciate the critical role raw milk suppliers play in the upstream phase of the dairy value chain. The payout has been appreciating over the years, as the processor’s base of contracted farmers continues to expand.

“The reward remains a statement of our excellent working relationship with all our 160,000 raw milk suppliers across the country. It has boosted the supply of high-quality milk, thus enabling us to continue supplying the market with high-quality products,” Kabaki added.

Brookside has been carrying out aggressive capacity-building programmes for its farmers across key raw milk production sheds, as it seeks to further grow the volumes supplied to it.

This year alone, more than 4,500 dairy farmers have benefited from Brookside’s extension services, which include field day trainings and the use of demonstration farms to showcase best practices in the dairy enterprise.

 “We are also strengthening the dairy value chain through the adoption of sustainable environment practices. We are addressing the challenge of seasonality in the dairy value chain through the building of water pans to enable farming communities to access water for their animals. The pans are rainwater harvesting structures which provide a reliable water source for livestock, domestic use as well as contributing to soil erosion control,” Kabaki said.

He added that the processor was also bolstering water availability through the facilitation of storage tanks to dairy groups to enhance gravity-fed water systems, which contribute to cost savings for farmers and enhancement of environmental sustainability.

Last month, the processor also embarked on a youth empowerment programme by onboarding nearly 200 porters to enhance milk collection using motorbikes in key production sheds in the country.

“We have also recruited extension service officers to train farmers on fodder establishment. We have also distributed 65,000 cuttings of Super Napier fodder to over 1,000 farmers for establishment on the farms,” he added.