Murungaru’s other love

Clad in grey khaki trousers, a blue windbreaker and matching cap, the hefty man edged closer to Olivia and scratched the back of her ears. Olivia sniffed his jacket briefly before ambling heavily across the concrete floor to the furthest corner of her shed to lie down, not interested in the big man or his visitors.

“Madam, we are not in a good mood today, are we?” the big man called out after her. Olivia did not respond. She can’t talk.

Olivia is a resident of Amboni Farm in Mweiga, just outside Nyeri town. She is a prized cow, the product of years of meticulous breeding. The big man is former powerful minister Chris Murungaru whose other love outside politics is cattle breeding and dairy farming. Dr Murungaru the cattleman is hardly known outside local and international research stations.

Best stock

By making use of modern technology, Amboni Farm currently boasts among the best stock one can find anywhere in the world. Olivia, for instance, produces between 40 and 50 litres of milk a day. For most dairy farmers, getting 15 litres a day from a cow is considered quite an achievement. Buying Olivia would require one to part with something in the region of Sh250,000.

From the superior stock, Amboni Farm supplies semen to local research stations such as Kabete and to farms in countries like Zambia, Malawi, USA, Canada and New Zealand, among others.

“Animal breeding has been my passion through most of my working life. This is something I started long before I went into politics. It is something I can’t let even politics interfere with. This is my other life,” says Dr Murungaru, a former MP for Kieni where the farm is situated.

And on his 22-acre spread lies a nugget that can catapult thousands of small-scale farmers into middle income earners in a short span of time given the right knowledge and tenacity.

“I have always been fascinated by the idea of making maximum use of small pieces of land to get maximum returns for the farmer. The secret is breeding, breeding and more breeding,” says Dr Murungaru.

When he established the farm in 1986, he soon realised that through utilising innovations in technology, it was possible to get a cow to give more milk than people thought was possible.

Although it has taken 23 years of research, the farm today has cows that would make any dairy farmer’s dreams come true.

However, Dr Murungaru acknowledges that the cost of breeding is on the higher side. An embryo off Amboni Farm for implantation in other cows is quoted at $350 (Sh27,000).

“What we are hoping for is that in the near future we will be able to establish a breeding centre where we can concentrate all technologies to produce high yielding animals that are also accessible to farmers in terms of cost,” he says.

“That we are able to keep 140 animals on 22 acres means that a farmer with an acre can keep four cows. If they produce an average of 40 litres each, the farmer can sell 160 litres a day. If you deduct the cost of production, the farmer would have an income of over Sh80,000 a month.”

Move millions

With this kind of income, Dr Murungaru continues, the country will be able to move millions of people from below the poverty line to the middle-income brackets.

He suggests that the government consider giving credit to small scale farmers to enable them upgrade their animals for maximum returns. He says that once milk production is optimised, a farmer will be able to comfortably service a bank loan or any credit advanced to him and at the same time improve his living standards.

In the proposed breeding centre, four technologies will be combined to produce the ideal dairy cow. The breeding techniques will include basic artificial insemination, embryo transfer (where fertilisation is done outside the womb and implanted in the animal) and gender selection, all of which have been successfully carried out at the farm.