Troubled Kenya: Drought, Violence and Feed Costs

KENYA - Poor Rains in Kenya are threatening to cost the dairy industry billions of shillongs in lost exports to the East African region, but there are other factors compounding the problem.
calendar icon 20 May 2008
clock icon 1 minute read

The poor rains being experienced in the country bring a possibility of a looming drought, but also post election violence in high producing areas of rift valley, high prices of animal feed and emergence of diseases caused by lack of personnel will hit the sector hard.

According to the Africa News, the situation is also likely to impact locally where prices of dairy products are expected to rise owing to the a drop in production.

The agency says that the situation spells doom for an industry that has seen dramatic growth since 2004, when production increased tenfold with he revival of state owned giant milk processor Kenya Co-operative Creameries (KCC).

Industry sources say that production is expected to fall this year to 5.1 billion litres a huge drp compared to the last year production figures of 5.7 billion litres.

In the north rift valley thousands of farmers were displaced by the post poll violence , losing their animals as well, leading to drop of more than 40%.

While many are now going back to their farms, they have lost livestock to raiders who evicted them , meaning that they would be unable to resume production.

  • View the Africa News story by clicking here.
  • TheCattleSite News Desk

    © 2000 - 2024 - Global Ag Media. All Rights Reserved | No part of this site may be reproduced without permission.