Dairy farmers are poised for higher returns if the deal to export Kenyan milk to West Africa becomes successful.
The principal secretary in the Agriculture Ministry Harry Kimutai hinted to a media briefing on the prospects. Kenya will leverage the African Continental Free Trade Area to trade easily with the West Africa nations the new trade zones shows high potential for dairy products.
“We are preparing the dairy sector to produce competitively so that we can sell our surplus dairy products in Africa,” Hinted Kimutai at the briefing.
Liberia has already expressed interest in Kenya’s milk.
To penetrate the new market, Kenya will have to invest in fully processed dairy products such as cheese, skim milk, butter and long life milk.
Kimutai added that processing the milk and value addition was only way to compete optimum with the already existing milk market in the West and North Africa market.
Kenya’s dairy sector is among the most popular agricultural ventures which employs almost one million people. Most of Kenya’s dairy farmers are small scale producers whose daily production averages between 10 litres to 100 litres.
The Kenya Dairy Board has in the last two months been facing criticism for the proposal to introduce tough laws that could cripple milk production.
The laws prohibited domestic sale of milk. Local sale of milk is a very critical element of dairy market though it reaps off the sales tax.
Even though the new market spell good prospects for the farmers, it may take years, and maybe several for the average dairy farmer to get an dime out of it. The fine processing that is needed for the market will come at en extra cost.