KENYA – The Limuru Dairy Farmers Cooperative Society is on the verge of collapse because of heightened competition in milk processing and a sharp increase in middlemen, who take over 60 per cent of the firm’s daily milk supply.

AllAfrica reports that the once prosperous milk processor in Central Province is receiving less than 30,000 litres of milk a day, a huge drop from the 100,000 litres it used to process in its hey day.

Founded in 1997, Limuru Dairy was a leading milk processor after the fall of the Kenya Cooperative Creameries (KCC).

Liberalisation of the milk sector in the 1990s saw Limuru Dairy lose its core markets in Kiambu, Nyandarua, and Laikipia counties to new businesses such as Brookside and Githunguri Dairy, the manufacturer of the Fresha milk brand.

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GAMBIA – The Gambia Priority Employment Programme (GAMJOBS) on Wednesday, 16 November, organized a one day validation workshop at the Baobab Holiday Resort in Kololi on Value Chain Analyses of dairy and poultry industries in Gambia.

The objective of the value chain analyses is to assess the current situation of the dairy sub-sector and the poultry industry in a bid to identify constraints and opportunities for growth and development of the sub-sector and the industry with a view to promoting investment and employment opportunities particularly for women and the youth. The assessment proposes recommendations and priority actions to be implemented as well as outcomes to be monitored, according to AllAfrica.com.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Naffie Barry highlighted that the value chain analysis is coming at a time when Gambia is addressing unemployment and poverty through the auspices of the Gamjobs Project and the Programme for Accelerated Development and Growth (PAGE).

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SOUTH AFRICA – Dairy farmers in South Africa (SA) could soon be extinct, with almost two-thirds having already deserted the industry over the last decade as a result of their margins shrinking.

FastMoving.com reports that although the production of milk in SA has increased slightly over the past ten years as farms have grown in size, the defection of almost 5000 dairy farmers has caused severe job losses.

The number of dairy farmers has declined from 7077 in 1998 to 2686 at the beginning of 2011. A total of 646 of SA’s dairy farmers packed up in just the 10 months from March last year to January this year. Koos Coetzee, chief economist of the Milk Producers’ Organisation, which represents around 85 per cent of dairy farmers, says prices now being paid to farmers are on average five per cent lower than a year ago.

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Even without Napier grass for their animals, dairy farmers in Gulu district say their farming is still sustainable whether in the dry or rainy season because they have been exposed to alternative feeds for their animals.

In a programme by the National Livestock Resource Research Institute (Nalirri) that Ms Margaret Odwar, a dairy farmer in Bardege Division, Gulu Municipality, has benefited from, she and others have been sensitised on using sorghum plant as animal feed. “I get double benefits from the sorghum plant because I use it for both subsistence purposes and use its stem for feeding my dairy cow,” said Ms Odwar, who is the chairperson of Gulu Women Diary Association.

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KENYA – The East African Dairy Development project which is implemented by Heifer International in partnership with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), TechnoServe, the World Agroforestry Centre and the African Breeders Service Total Cattle Management, has been working with farmers in east Africa since January 2008.

In the past two years, the project has focused on improving the dairy incomes of over 170,000 dairy farmers in Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda. In Kenya, interventions to improve dairy production in Kenya’s Rift Valley province are transforming the lives of farmers like Florence Chepkirui.

Florence is a resident of Saoset village of Bomet district in Kenya’s south Rift Valley region. The district has a wonderful climate and beautiful farms on rolling hills and valleys. Her two-acre farm supports subsistence crop farming, two dairy cows and fodder that the cows feed on. Florence is one of many smallholder farmers in Saoset and despite her being blind, she has succeeded in earning a living from dairy farming.

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