By John Majau
Dairy farmers have been urged to stop relying on rain for farming and to instead embrace irrigation.
Meru Dairy Union CEO Mr. Kennedy Gitonga asked farmers to start thinking of irrigation since farmers in areas like Netherlands, Israel and USA do not rely on rainfall.
“Our farmers should emulate this by using fodder and rely on irrigation,” he said.
He revealed that dairy farmers are currently facing a hard time due to an increase in fuel prices and ongoing drought.
“The price if fuel and electricity has made the cost of production to go up due to transportation,” he said.
Gitonga expressed concern that next year, milk productivity might be affected due to lack of rainfall.
“Milk productivity has gone down by about 20 per cent because of drought. We have been advising farmers to adopt the usage of silage and that has greatly cushioned us from a bigger mess,” he said.
He revealed that they aim to produce 1 million litres of milk annually yet they are currently producing only 250,000 litres annually.
He added that farmers have complained about animal feeds being sold at Ksh 2,700 to Ksh3,000, further noting that they are talking to some feed producers to reduce the prices lest they are forced to set up their own plant to manufacture feeds.
“Our partners are willing to help,” he said.
He encouraged farmers to prepare farms as rains are due and lauded the government for subsidizing the price of fertilizers.
