For many years, poor management and delayed payment for milk deliveries by farmers resulted in low milk deliveries and near collapse of Kaptama dairy cooperative, located in Mt Elgon Sub County.
On average, only about 300 liters of milk was being delivered per day to the more than five decade old cooperative, a quantity that was uneconomical for collection by off takers.
This was to change in July of 2019 when the National Agricultural and Rural Inclusive Growth Project (NARIGP) came, through the ministry of agriculture.
A meeting of Bungoma County Dairy Value Chain Platform was held to strategize on ways to revamp the dairy sector. The meeting identified Kaptama dairy cooperative for financial support, to put it back on its feet which was realized through NARIGP.
The aim was to increase agricultural productivity and profitability through organized marketing.
The chairman of the Cooperative, Kipnesty Ndiwa told KNA that the entry of NARIGP was God sent. First, an aggressive mobilization of new members was done. They were then taken through capacity building on governance and introduced to AI facility.
A bulk input supply store was established, new motorbikes purchased for milk transportation from farmers and a one-stop dairy technology hub constructed.
“With the capacity and infrastructure support provided, a drive to register more members was launched,” he explained adding, recruitment of new members pushed membership drastically from 1260 farmers to 3200 farmers currently.
Milk delivery has over time risen to an average of 5000 litres per day, up from an average of just about 300 litres per day in 2018. The increase in the volumes of milk deliveries has enabled the cooperative to identify a bulk off-taker who offers a higher price per litre of milk collected.
A farmer, Humphrey Musani, says he is happy that the price of a litre of milk has increased from Sh.28 to Sh 40.
“I supply 100 liters of milk daily, earning me Sh 120, 000 monthly. Through this, I am able to take my children to school comfortably and meet other family basic needs.
The cooperative is managed by a board of directors and six sub-committees.
According to Mr Ndiwa, the cooperative principle activities are milk bulking, selling, provision of inputs and extension services to the members.
He says members on average, now earn Sh 200,000 per month from the 5000 litres supplied at Sh 40 per litre up from Sh 8400 that farmers were earning before the project intervention.