By Dennis Dibondo
Meru Dairy Cooperative Union Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kenneth Gitonga has said the company has increased production of milk per day by more than 100,000 per day.
“Today we are boosting 620,000 litres per day and our plan is to make a million litres per day. When the president came to our annual farmers meeting last year, we were producing 524,000 litres per day. We have increased it by more than 100,000 litres,” he said.
He spoke during the 10th annual dairy farmers annual field day at Gitoro showground on Saturday which was graced by among others; President William Ruto and his deputy Kithure Kindiki.
Gitonga noted that last year they had 123,000 farmers and now this year they have 146,000 farmers and a market was 23 per cent last year but now their market share is 33 percent while doing a third of dairy in the country.
He said they aim to grow more annually as they have been increasing their capacity and production of milk which ten years ago stood at 10,000 litres per day.
Gitonga said the main challenge in the sector was cost of inputs such as the animal feeds semen and vaccination.
Gitonga thanked President William Ruto for giving out KSh100 million for setting up a feed mill, which is ready and will be inspected and start production by December.
He urged the government to subsidise the sexed semed and make it more likely to get a dairy cow.
“We have sexed semen selling at Sh.2900 at KAGRI and we are giving it to farmers at Sh.4000. We urge the government to look into it because the chances of getting a dairy cow is 50/ 50,” he said.
President Ruto addressed the issue of sexed semen where he directed that the cost would from next month be reduced to KSh1,000.
The CEO disclosed that his firm has also opened a website for selling cows online to eliminate brokers and help farmers sell and buy cows easily.
