Transforming the Kenyan Dairy Feeds System to Improve Farmer Productivity and Livelihoods

Imagine a technology that, in less than two years, could almost double farmers’ incomes in poverty stricken East Africa. Imagine that this technology could improve 600,000 smallholder dairy farmers’ productivity and livelihoods in Kenya alone. Imagine that you had worked for eight years and had only reached 48,000 of those farmers. That was the situation the International Center for Research in Agro-Forestry (ICRAF) was facing in 2005 when they first partnered with the United States Agency for International Development and its Agricultural Partnerships for Productivity and Prosperity (AP3) Project. For more than two decades, ICRAF had been working in eastern Africa to respond to the challenges facing small-holder dairy farmers in raising healthy livestock. They had found that drought-resistant supplemental fodder shrubs, such as Calliandra calothyrsus, Leucaena trichandra, and Morus alba (mulberry), improve both the quality and quantity of dairy products.

Author(s): USAID

Publication Date: 2007

Location: Kenya

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