President William Ruto has announced a raft of measures aimed at lowering the cost of milk production in the country.
President Ruto was the chief guest at the Meru Central Dairy Cooperative Union 8th annual farmers field day at Meru Showground on Saturday
The head of state lauded the Meru Dairy for it’s efforts to raise milk production in line with his administration.
Zero rated
Among the measures aimed at improving milk production, the president said, include zero rating of duty on all animal feeds raw materials as well as lowering the price sexed semen.
“In the next budget, we have removed duty from animal feed raw materials so that they are all zero rated. This will make the feeds affordable,” President Ruto said.
Mr Ruto noted that the costs of heifers is very high due to inaccessibility of sexed semen.

“As a government, we previously spent Sh1 billion for bull stations. We have allocated Sh400 million for a sexed semen machine to address this issue.
Once we acquire the machine, we will lower the price of sexed semen from Sh8000 to Sh1500 by December,” he said.
Agriculture CS Mithika Linturi said the machine will have a capacity to produce 500,000 doses of sexed semen.
The president further said the government plans to lease land for production of hay which will be sold to farmers at subsidized rates.
Further, Mr Ruto pledged Sh100 million to support the Meru Dairy establish a feed mill.
” I am aware that the union has a plan to establish a feed mill in Meru at a cost of Sh200 million. The government will put in Sh100 million to reduce the burden on the farmers,” President Ruto said.
He also promised to push Mombasa County government to pay Sh71 million it owes to the Meru Dairy Union for a school milk programme.
“I will face the governor to ensure the money is paid. If he doesn’t pay, I will have the money deducted at the exchequer,” Mr Ruto said.
The president said his administration intends to double milk production from the current 4 billion litres.
Meru Dairy CEO Kenneth Gitonga said the union intends to raise production to 1 million litres daily and export it’s produce to neighboring countries.