Dairy farming is quickly becoming popular among a majority of farmers in the country as most of them are now venturing into the practice.
Currently, farmers in the North Rift region sell a litre of milk at about Sh40 to milk processing companies like Brookside and The New Kenya Cooperative Creameries (KCC) among other.
Simple calculations to this price hint how the dairy farmers smile all the way to the bank even as their cereal counterparts always lament over poor prices.
Assuming that a farmer has a cow that produces 10 litres of milk daily, this amounts to Sh400 in a day translating to Sh12,000 monthly.
What if this farmer has 3 cows, this gives him/her a sum of Sh36,000 in a single month. This is almost same to what someone employed in the white collar jobs eans.
Given this is an approximate amount, dairy farmers can comfortably pay their bills like school fee among other basic needs.
The advantage of dairy farming is that it uses a small piece of land compared crop farming that is more popular today among the farmers. Crop farmers especially maize is, however, becoming of less value due to price fluctuations annually.
Most dairy farmers now practice zero grazing as land is becoming scarce. Some practice tethering. This is applicable when the number of cows is minimal and the piece of land is scarce.
With dairy farming becoming more popular with Kenyans the government should chip in to improve this sector as it promotes economy and provide self-employment.
Vaccination and dipping should be done at a lower cost, preferably subsidized with other cost sorted by the Ministry of Agriculture in devolved units.
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