Coolers start taking in milk after a year’s delay

What you need to know:

  • Murang’a Governor Mwangi wa Iria said farmers were delivering more than 10,000 litres of milk to the 12 coolers a day.
  • Most local cooperatives now sell their milk to the coolers managed by the newly established Murang’a Cooperative Creameries.
  • The government has subsidised artificial insemination services to Sh500 down from Sh1,500.

Dairy farmers in Murang’a County can now expect higher earnings after a milk cooling plant started receiving milk, after a one-year delay.

The county government bought 35 coolers for Sh500 million and 12 have started receiving milk.

The milk coolers have been installed in the wards, where a litre of milk will fetch Sh35.

The plan is to eliminate middlemen who exploit farmers by buying milk cheaply. The brokers buy a litre at Sh30 or less.

Farmers sold milk at throw-away prices to reduce losses as it would go bad due to lack of coolers. However, this will now end.

Murang’a Governor Mwangi wa Iria said farmers were delivering more than 10,000 litres of milk to the 12 coolers a day.

Most local cooperatives now sell their milk to the coolers managed by the newly established Murang’a Cooperative Creameries.

“We have 26 local cooperatives formed by small-scale dairy farmers.

“They have all entered into partnerships with the creameries and we hope to get more market for milk from here,” said Mr Iria.

“We are expecting to increase the quantity of milk we are receiving to 50,000 litres a day by end of this month. However, our target is 150,000 to 200,000 litres a day when all coolers are working.”

He said they were also looking into ways of increasing milk production in the county from the current 600,000 litres to one million litres a day.

The government has subsidised artificial insemination services to Sh500 down from Sh1,500.

“We are also planning to start providing cheaper dairy feed because the current rates are prohibitive to most farmers,” said the governor.

“The county has 240,000 dairy cows. Each produces an average of three litres of milk per day. We want to see this increase to 10 litres.”

He said construction of a processing plant in Maragua is also at an advanced stage. We will pack and do value addition to maximise on returns.