Update of our Agriculture, Dairy and Economic Development project in Emali, Kenya

Our ADED (Agriculture, Dairy and Economic Development) project in Emali, Kenya aims to deliver a dairy processing farm to support dairy farmers. This will increase the milk productivity of their cows, enabling them to sell more milk in a safe process and increase their income to support their families. Whilst the development of the processing plant is being finalised there is a lot of activity happening in other areas of the ADED project with our poultry, crop and dairy farmers:

Poultry Farmers

A total of 645, 2-month old chicks have been given to 15 groups of farmers who were granted savings and loans. The idea is that the poultry farmers will rear the chickens and generate income from the eggs and meat. The groups that received the chickens were chosen because they already had some experience in rearing chickens. Since being chosen they’ve had refresher training and are being monitored by agricultural staff to ensure that their chicken rearing is successful.

Crop Farmers

Often called the “miracle tree”, the Moringa is a drought-tolerant tree that grows quickly even in poor soil and is known as a super food. The ADED project will support crop farmers to diversify into growing Moringa. A plot of land has been secured to establish a demonstration farm. As the name suggests, this field will be a place where farmers will learn how to grow this crop so that they can transfer their skills to their plots at home. At this time, 84 crop farmers have been trained on how to successfully grow a Moringa crop as well as learning about the other crops can be planted alongside it. Once the farmers have their plots established they will receive seedlings from the project nursery to plant. The farmers have also received business training to understand what markets are available for selling the Moringa after harvest.

Dairy Farmers

In order to produce milk, cows need to be healthy and happy. Much of the project training for dairy farmers is around feeding, breeding and looking after the health of their cows. The project is supporting 229 dairy farmers, 169 are Maasai and 60 are Kamba. Maasai are known as pastoralists and while they have much experience in this area, through the project they are now learning new ways of managing pasture and stock. Below you can see Maasai farmers learning about feed conservation.

Your donations to this project are match funded, meaning every $1 you give, the project will receive $3! If you would like to support our ongoing work in Emali, Kenya and the ADED project, please donate now.