Meru Dairy Union Chief Executive officer Kenneth Gitonga has said the company has increased milk production per day by more than 100,000 per day.
“Today we are boosting 620,000 litres milk production per day. Our target is to produce 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,” said Gitonga.
He spoke during the 10th annual dairy farmers annual field day at Gitoro showground on Saturday where President William Ruto was in attendance.
Gitonga said last year they had 123,000 farmers who have increased to 146,000.
He said they had a market share of 23 percent last year which currently stands at 33 percent making it a third of dairy in kenya.
The CEO said they aim to grow more annually, noting that they have been increasing their capacity and they have increased the production of milk.
Ten years ago they had a production of 10,000 litres per day.
Gitonga said the main challenge of Meru dairy is animal feeds and vaccination of dairy cows,and breeds.
Gitonga thanked President Ruto for giving out Sh.100 million for setting up a feed mill which is almost ready and will be inspected and start production in December.
He urged the government to subsidise the sexed semen 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.
He said Meru dairy has also opened a website to sell cows online in order to eliminate brokers and help farmers sell and buy cows easily.
