John Mosengeti goes through records in a book at the Maziwa Trust Dairy Cooperative in Voi town.

Being the vice-chair of the outfit, Mosengeti regularly takes time to check the records of the 1,500 members of the society who deliver at least 3,000 litres of milk daily, which they sell at Sh60 each.

“We started the society to offer ourselves better returns through collective bargaining,” recounts the farmer, who is among the founding members.

It has been a long journey for Mosengeti, a retired electrical engineer who bought his first cow, a crossbreed of Zebu and Friesian at Sh15,000 in 2005.

“My neighbour wanted to take his child to secondary school, and he approached me to buy the animal for school fees,” he says. At the time, he was only growing maize, a variety of legumes and oranges.

The following year, he bought a Friesian cow at Sh40,000.

Since then, his herd has grown to 14. He zero-grazes them on his farm at Bura –Baraka, Nyolo sub-location in Taita Taveta County.

Out of his herd, three are presently lactating, giving him an average of 40 litres daily. He attributes the low production to poor feeds as he relies on napier grass, a situation he is seeking to change with the cooperative started in 2013.

Currently, he supplies about 25 litres of milk to the 20-member cooperative at Sh38 a litre. The outfit processes the milk and sells it at Sh60 a litre at their plant while raw milk goes for Sh40. The price is slightly higher than what processors offer other farmers in the region.

The cooperative members were initially selling the milk to the processors at Sh30.

Mosengeti has received training on hygiene, pasteurising and packaging.

“It is through value addition that we are sure of getting more money and declare dividends at the end of the year to be shared among the shareholders.”

To become a member, each farmer contributes Sh5,000 once. Shareholding is open to all dairy farmers in Taita Taveta County.

Upon receiving the produce from the farmers at the Voi plant, the milk is tested for purity and density.

Then it is boiled at 89 to 90 degree centigrade and gradually cooled in a chiller tank to 40 degree centigrade and distributed to dispensers at strategic points of sale.

Mosengeti says they target households, schools, hotels and restaurants.

“Our entry strategy into the market has been to sale milk from dispensers at Kariakor and Kaloleni where we supply up to 700 litres of milk a day at Sh60 a litre,” says Mosengeti, noting they have to buy milk in bulk from farmers because they do not have individual storage facilities.

The cooperative has invested in a Sh1 million pasteuriser, two milk dispensers valued at Sh1 million each, a 5,000 litre chiller tank, milk testing accessories, a digital weighing scale and a Sh1.5 million packaging machine.

“We bought the equipment through a Sh5 million grant from the World Bank’s Kenya agricultural productivity programme and a Sh1.7 million interest-free loan from KCB Foundation.”

John Nyambu, the chairman, says the cooperative has opened an avenue to increase milk production and reduce poverty in Taita Taveta County. More dairy farmers have improved their incomes.

Programme coordinator Albert Mulwa says the challenge for the farmers is to increase milk production through quality feeds.

“The farmers require more training on pasture, feed production, branding and hay preservation.”

Taita Taveta County, according to Mulwa, has great dairy farming potential.

because climatic condition is favourable and there are market opportunities.