Beneficiary profile

By Reid Wilson - Development Coordinator, May 25, 2007 09:58 AM

Increased milk production is critical for smallholder producers who eke a living from plots of land measuring less than an acre. To improve milk production, farmers must improve their land use practices, as well as diversify the types and quality of dairy animal fodder that they plant. However, animal feed and food crops compete when grown in close proximity to each other. In order to ensure that farmers are not exposed to food-insecurity, TechnoServe has been conducting a series of trainings aimed at finding a middle ground that will result in increased animal feed production while ensuring rural households have ample food production.

The trainings include the introduction of fodder crops that grow well with minimal rainfall and do not require large tracks of land. These crops also enable several harvests in a year, thereby ensuring sustained feed production. Training is conducted through farm visits to demonstration plots owned by lead farmers in the community. It is TechnoServe’s goal to ensure that increased revenues from improved milk sales will result in higher income and thus better access to food and other consumer goods for rural households.

One beneficiary of the program is Mary Njeri Karanja. She joined Nyala Dairy in 2004 when she was producing only 10 liters of milk from one cow. Though this level of production was above the average of 3-5 litres per farmer per day, Mary always felt that she could do better. Her opportunity came through farm visits and farmer training facilitated by TechnoServe. By seeing other dairy farmers in more challenging environments producing more milk, Mary changed her dairy farming practices and is currently producing 30 litres of milk per day earning $157 per month from her two cows.

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