Kenya’s ambitious plan to develop a sustainable dairy industry is gaining momentum, positioning the sector as a critical player in ensuring the nation’s food security, meeting nutritional needs, and driving economic growth.
Kenya’s Dairy Industry Transformation: A Strategic Roadmap for Sustainability and Growth
The Kenya Dairy Board (KDB) has made significant strides in implementing the “Kenya Dairy Industry Sustainability Roadmap 2023-2032,” a comprehensive 10-year strategy aimed at transforming the dairy sector. The roadmap seeks to meet the rising demand for milk and dairy products while upholding food safety standards and minimizing environmental impact.
Margaret Kibogy, managing director and CEO of KDB, has led industry experts in visiting dairy processors across the country as part of ongoing efforts to implement the roadmap. The plan was unveiled in December 2023 and aligns Kenya’s dairy industry with global climate commitments, particularly under the Dairy Net Zero campaign. Its primary focus is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote sustainability across economic, social, and environmental dimensions.
“The Kenyan dairy industry has a pivotal role in addressing challenges and realizing its full potential,” said Kibogy. The roadmap calls for an accelerated shift towards more sustainable practices, including the adoption of commercially viable and intensive production systems, particularly for smallholder and medium-sized dairy units.
Key pillars of the roadmap include:
Prosperity: Ensuring sufficient milk production to meet domestic demand and export targets competitively.
People: Supplying safe, quality, and affordable milk while ensuring decent livelihoods for those involved in the industry.
Planet: Reducing the environmental footprint of dairy operations in line with Kenya’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to lower greenhouse gas emissions by 32% by 2030.
The KDB aims to drive industrial-scale, collectively contracted fodder production and higher consolidation of operators to create more capitalized and financially sustainable businesses. It is also pushing for joint ventures with global players to stimulate innovation, market diversification, and carbon capture initiatives.
Kibogy highlighted that the roadmap promotes collaboration between key industry players and the government to establish a strategic vision for a sustainable dairy sector. Targets include ensuring 80% of marketed milk goes through the cold chain, increasing the share of formally processed milk to 60%, reducing retail prices for packaged milk, and doubling the monthly earnings of dairy farmers.
Kenya’s dairy industry, which contributes 4% of the national GDP and supports 1.8 million smallholder farmers, produces over four billion liters of cow milk annually. This output makes Kenya one of the top dairy producers in Africa, with relatively high per capita dairy consumption. However, the sector faces challenges, such as underutilized processing facilities running at below 50% capacity due to inconsistent milk supply.
Climate change further threatens the industry, with failed rainy seasons and environmental degradation leading to declining productivity. The roadmap aims to address these challenges by promoting modern farming techniques, climate-smart approaches, and advanced processing technologies to increase milk production by an additional 2.5 billion liters per year.
“The roadmap will help us employ modern technologies and climate-resilient strategies to competitively produce, process, and market quality milk, while contributing to Kenya’s Vision 2030 and Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda,” Kibogy concluded.
This strategic initiative is expected to usher in a new era of growth for Kenya’s dairy sector, fostering innovation, rural development, and long-term sustainability.
Read more at © DairyNews.today https://dairynews.today/global/news/kenya-s-dairy-industry-transformation-a-strategic-roadmap-for-sustainability-and-growth.html