Dairy farming encouraged

Imenti south district agricultural officer, Joseph Mugambi has challenged farmers in the district to consider venturing in dairy farming so as to take advantage of the Kanyakine milk cooling plant.

Speaking to the media at the district headquarters, the agricultural officer said the cooling plant was currently underutilized as farmers were not producing enough milk at the farm level.

Mugambi encouraged more farmers to commercially and professionally invest in dairy farming saying the activity was paying if given the attention and time it requires.

The agricultural officer noted that for a farmer to succeed and make profits in dairy farming, he does not need to have a big chunk of land but it all depends on the way the farmer handles labor and fodder supply for the animals.

He pointed out that the district had a lot of idle potential in the dairy farming as he called on the youth to try their luck in the activity in a bid to avoid being prone to social vices as well as make a fortune in terms of income.

Mugambi said the department had embarked on a program to educate and sensitize farmers in the dairy farming activity on the need to strive to improve on their breeds in an effort to have animals able to produce more milk per day.

He also reiterated the need for change of attitude among farmers towards dairy farming saying most of them were having dairy animals for production of milk to cater for their domestic needs not considering the animals were likely to be a liability to the family budget.

The agricultural officer said a serious farmer should be able to realize it was easier and cheaper to manage a healthy dairy animal than managing a coffee or tea farm.

Mugambi admitted that prices of items such as animal feeds and insecticides used to spray the animals had continued to be on the rice adding that well organized farmers were unlikely to feel the pinch since their milk production was able to cater for the required inputs.

He further called on farmers to change their farming activities with the times considering that farm sizes were on the decline due to continued sub-divisions of family land as a result of a fast growing population against the stagnant resource.