REWARD:  Dairy farmers have received a major boost after processor Brookside Dairy released Sh100 million in bonus to its raw milk suppliers countrywide.

The rewards will benefit farmers’ groups which met agreed targets in supply volumes and raw milk quality parameters for deliveries made to the processor last year.

John Gethi, Brookside’s milk procurement and manufacturing director said the payment, which will benefit nearly 300 dairy groups, underscores Brookside’s business resilience, after the firm braved shocks associated with Covid -19 that cut performance across all sectors.

Business resilience

“The payout is not only a demonstration of our commitment to partnership with our farmers, but also a show of business resilience in an exceptionally difficult economic year,” he said during the launch of the bonus payouts in Keringet, Nakuru county on Tuesday.

The payout, under the processor’s raw milk supply reward scheme, seeks to motivate farmers to increase milk production both in quantity and quality, which leads to increased efficiency in processing and marketing of milk.

Gethi said: “Two years ago, we began a programme of rewarding our farmers as a statement of our appreciation of the critical role they play in the upstream phase of the dairy value chain.”

Good quality dairy products, he said can only be made from good quality raw milk, adding: “The attribute of quality in our dairy products cannot be achieved without the involvement of our farmers in the production and supply of quality raw milk.”

The processor which is currently paying up to Sh42 per litre of raw milk, the highest in the industry, said it would continue to build the capacity of farmers in best practice in the dairy enterprise, such as regular training of farmers.

“There is a huge and untapped potential for the country’s dairy sub-sector. The gains of the dairy industry can be further consolidated through stringent application of milk quality standards,” Gethi said.

Kuresoi Dairy Farmers chair Samuel Rono lauded the firm, saying the reward scheme is a great motivation to farmers to increase volumes of milk marketed to the processor.

“This is proof that just like coffee and tea farmers, there is hope for dairy farmers who have been in a struggle for long.

Farmers can now engage in full time dairy production like any other sub sector,” he said.

Rono said his group is on initiatives that seek to encourage members to grow milk production, such as investment in year-long availability of fodder and water for dairy animals.        –Apollo Abraham