Brookside Dairy's milk procurement General Manager Emmanuel Kabaki (R) awards farmers with food-grade milk cans at an empowerment forum in Nakuru County/ HANDOUTChristmas has come early for farmers contracted by milk processor–Brookside Dairy after the firm announced a cash reward payout of Sh 257 million.
The reward is over and above payments made for milk delivered to the processor and represents an initiative by Brookside to encourage farmers to grow volumes while mainstreaming clean milk production in the value chain.
Brookside’s general manager for milk procurement, Emmanuel Kabaki, said the payout will benefit dairy groups and individual farmers across the country who signed up for the programme and have been supplying raw milk to Brookside in the period between July 1, and November 30, this year.
The payment comes less than six months after the processor paid another Sh303 million in bonuses for milk supplied between December 1, 2024 and May 31, this year.
According to Kabaki, the half-year payouts falls under a scheme operated by the firm to reward farmers for meeting agreed milk supply targets in both quantity and quality.
“We are rewarding farmers who signed up for our scheme and were given raw milk supply targets, for both quantity and quality,” Kabaki said in a statement issued in Nakuru.
The bulk of the payout will go to farmers supplying the processor through dairy groups (Sh118 million), while milk traders, large farms and individual suppliers will pocket the remainder of the Sh257 million.
Brookside has been carrying out aggressive capacity-building programmes for farmers across key raw milk production sheds, as it seeks to further grow the volumes supplied to it.
“The reward scheme, in its sixth year now, is a statement of our excellent working relationship with all our 160,000 raw milk suppliers across the country. It has boosted the supply of high-quality milk, thus enabling us to tap into a larger share of high-value products,” Kabaki added.
This year alone, over 60,000 dairy farmers have benefited from Brookside’s extension services, which include field day trainings and the use of demonstration farms to showcase best practice in the dairy enterprise.
The firm says it is also strengthening the dairy supply chain through adoption of environmentally friendly technologies that promote sustainable milk production across the country.
"Sustainable agronomic practices in dairy, such as adoption of agroforestry and use of biogas as a clean energy source, work towards reduction of greenhouse gas emissions,” Kabaki said.
He said the firm is also working with farmers on fodder establishment through distribution of fodder. So far this year, it has distributed a total of nearly 250,000 cuttings of super napier and sweet potato vines as fodder to farmers for establishment on the farms.
