• In Africa, Kenya tops the list of countries in Africa with high milk production at 5.2 billion litres annually.
Image: FILE
Milk production has increased by 19 million litres, thanks to good weather, according to the Kenya Dairy Board
Managing Director Margaret Kibogy, said the production went up from 41 million litres in May to the current average of 60 million litres a month.
Kibogy said in January, milk production was highest at 68 million litres due to the good short rains season in 2018.
“The country then experienced a dry spell that went on till May. This resulted to a monthly drastic drop in milk production by 27 million litres,” she said in a telephone interview.
She said the rise in production is expected to continue up until the end of August,” she said.
The MD however said that the producer price of milk has gone down due to the demand and supply factors.
“When supply is up, demand goes down hence the decrease by about Sh3 to Sh2 at the farm level,” she said.
Kibogy said on average, the price of a litre of milk at the farm gate is going at Sh30.
Global market
According to 2018 UN-Food Agricultural Organisation statistics, globally milk prices are highest in China at Sh47 and USA at Sh41 due to the strong economics of the countries and also the dynamic of populations.
Brazil is at Sh36, Sh33 for New Zealand, South Africa at Sh31 while Uganda prices are at Sh22.
In Africa, Kenya tops the list of countries with high milk production at 5.2 billion litres annually, followed by Sudan at 4.6 billion, while South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda are at 2.8, 2.5 and 2.2 billion respectively.
Kibogy however said the cost of production has been a big challenge in Kenya averaging at Sh20 to produce a litre of milk.
“60 percent of the cost of production is spent on feeds. Farmers should invest in producing their own feeds so that they can be able to cut the cost of production to at least Sh15 such that even if prices of a litre of milk goes for Sh25 at the farm gate, they can still break even,” Kibogy said.
She said processors cannot be able to reduce the burden to farmers because they have to meet the cost of the milk transporters, distributors in addition to the cost of processing which is very high.
Out of the total 100 percent payments made in dairy, Sh34 goes to the farmer, Sh17 is cost for processing, another Sh5 goes to the cooperatives, Sh4 to the transporter and another Sh4 to the transporters.
“The farmer takes the biggest share in this value chain but they need to manage their farms properly and work on feed management to be able to make money in dairy. We are also researching on how to cut down the cost of production in the sub sector so that farmers can maximize on profits,” said Kibogy.