Farmers get big break through thriving yoghurt factory and savings society

After five years of struggling with lack of a market, 17 dairy farmers at Seke village in Nyahera, Kisumu County, have finally discovered a secret to success.

A chance meeting in 2013 by five of them at a farmers’ workshop in Nairobi has helped transform the fortunes of their village.

“I met some four other dairy farmers from my village at the workshop. We were challenged to start a group as other farmers who attended the workshop from other parts of the country like Kisii and Central Kenya came through their farmers’ groups,” says Abednego Osir.

After the workshop, the five farmers from Nyahera met and discussed ways of dealing with the challenges facing them. The result was a milk collection point and a cooperative society.

Osir started dairy farming in 2008 as a part time job when he was a lecturer at Egerton University.

Then, he was preparing for retirement, and needed something to keep him busy. It came in the form of four crossed cattle from Nyang’ori Bible College.

The manufacturing engineer also bought a bull at Egerton University to serve the four cows.

“Farming was a part time job, so getting 20 litres of milk a day was a satisfaction to me as we could get enough for domestic use and make good money by selling the surplus to our neighbours,” said Osir.

When he retired in 2012, Osir turned his attention to farming. He expanded the unit and milk production shot to between 60 and 80 litres a day. This forced him to hire services of two people to help him take care of the cows and sell the milk in the village.

But it is with group that Osir has grown his dairy venture. Moved by the need to expand even further, they enrolled 12 other farmers and formed the Seke Farmers Cooperative Society. The sacco would help them source funds to establish a small processing plant to make yoghurt and other milk products.

Today, a litre of Nyahera Yoghurt costs Sh160, and the money is remitted to the group, where it is again loaned to the farmers to buy more cows and feeds.

 From his seven cows, Osir gets between 70 and 100 litres of milk every day, which he supplies to the group’s processing plant.