A Kenyan dairy group set up to enable members to access improved cattle breeds, is aiming to have all of its members stocked with their own livestock within the next two years.
The 24 member Ushindi Self Help Group in Eburra extension area of Self Help’s Gilgil area based project was started in 2005, and since then has enabled four of its members to buy dairy cows.
Using funds that its members pool together, the group aims to buy a further six animals for it’s members this year, and to have stocked all of its members with dairy cows before the end of 2009.
The group has received a range of technical training from Self Help in livestock care and management, as well as training and support with the establishment of zero grazing units on their two acre farmers. Before they can quality to own a dairy cow they must also have established at least half an acre of fodder crops for the animals.
Members are required to make monthly contributions of 250KS (€2.80) to the group’s central fund, and only qualify to own a dairy cow when their savings have reached at least 50% of the 30,000 KS (€330) cost of an improved breed dairy cow.
Subsistence farmers who currently rely on maize and bean production for their livelihoods, the 24 members of the Ushindi Self Help Group are also being encouraged by the Self Help intervention to grow passion fruit and keep bees as a means of improving their incomes.
Group secretary Reuben Muraye says that the members who have cows at present are producing milk that they use for home consumption and to sell in local markets. ‘But when we reach full capacity be hope to have enough milk to be able to sell to a dairy in the nearby town of Naivasha’, he adds. |
Self Help Africa in Kenya |
Self Help Africa began working in Kenya in the late 1990's - initially in partnership with the Franciscan Brothers at Baraka Agricultural College, and in more recent years as a seperate, independent agency.
The organisation continues to work closely with Baraka College on a Beekeeping Extension Programme and other activities, while it has also established it's own area based development programmes in the Rift Valley Province. |
