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 Report on the establishment of partnerships with the private forage seed and dairy sector in Kenya  Introduction Partnerships with development organisations, other research centres – international as national, NGOs are important to scale technologies, as CIAT does often not have the staff nor a well-established network on the ground to scale technology uptake. It is of great importance to find partners, who’s objectives can be supported by feeding in our new technologies like improved forages. E.G. Send a cow, a CIAT partner in Kenya and Ethiopia has already for many years ongoing activities like providing small scale farmers with dairy cows and training them how to raise, manage and feed them properly in order to improve their livelihood. As feeding is an important cost factor and evident for the cow’s productivity, the promotion of improved forages is in their interest as well as in the interest of CIAT who is interested in a widespread uptake of its developed technologies. In the case of improved forages, the cooperation with private sector partners is key for a widespread uptake and use of the technology. The partnership with the private seed sector will improve the seed availability, accessibility and to a certain degree, also the affordability of the seeds of Brachiaria Hybrids (Mulato 2, Cobra, Cayman and Camello) and Panicum Mombasa and such improve the supply side. For a strengthening on the demand side we have identified the dairy enterprises with their attached cooperatives as an important partner. Private forage seed sector CIAT and Papalotla, a Mexican based private seed company signed a long-term cooperation agreement 2019. The commitment to intensified marketing activities in Africa is part of that agreement. As in all countries the introduction and import of new germplasm like improved forages is based on a registration process which takes up to 36 months in Kenya. For the first three Brachiaria Hybrids, this registration process was accomplished end of 2016 and since then Brachiaria Mulato 2, Cobra and Cayman are commercially available in Kenya. Mid 2019, the Brachiaria Hybrid Camello, especially bred for drought resistance, and Panicum cv Mombasa should finish the registration process and be commercially available. These registration processes are initiated and payed for by the private seed company and its local distributor Advantage crops limited. Despite being on the market since end of 2016, the planting and use of the 3 Brachiaria Hybrids is still limited. Many farmers have heard of Brachiaria in general, including many unproven rumours but detailed knowledge is lacking. Additional availability and accessibility is very limited.    Knowledge As long as farmers are not familiar with a new variety they hesitate to plant it, especially when they do not know about the performance under their local conditions, the value of the forage and the positive effect on the productivity of their dairy cows.  The marketing efforts of the distributors of Papalotla is very limited. There is a flyer, they have a homepage and they participate in some events like the ‘African dairy conference’ and some other events. However, the outreach to farmers is very limited which also reflects in the modest sales numbers. CIAT, together with SNV’s Kenya Market Led Dairy Programme have started beginning of 2018 to establish demonstration plots with improved forages. These demonstration plots serve to demonstrate different forages, e.g. the Brachiaria hybrids to farmers. By planting, managing, harvesting and feeding these improved forages to their cows, farmers learn about the forages, familiarize with them and learn about the additional value compared to the traditional ones like Napier, Rhodes etc… Through field days, trainings, peer consulting and other accompanying activities knowledge is spread and interest in the farming community grows. While the demonstration plot activities up to now concentrated on individual farmers and only 2 dairy cooperatives and 1 agricultural training centre, the coming demo plots will be established in dairy cooperatives to reach out to all their members. Further activities towards knowledge transfer like apps, radio emissions and videos are under preparation and increase the outreach to larger groups of potential users.  But the interest in materials must be satisfied that this interest is not degrading again.  Beside the availability of the seeds, they must also be accessible and affordable. Availability  The availability of the seeds has to be assured by the private seed company and its distributors. After the registration of the material, there must be enough stock available in the country to meet the demand of the market. Accessibility Only a minority of farmers will start long and complicated search procedures to get seeds of a variety. To be successful and come to scale the seeds must be easy accessible, meaning ideally the farmers will be able to buy it in their ‘usual agro vet shop’ or at least in the closer environment. We are actually trying to convince the distributor to work close with the dairy cooperatives in which we will establish demo plots. By holding available seeds in the dairy cooperatives, farmers could access seeds without any additional efforts and we are convinced that this will boost sales of the seeds and thus uptake of the improved forages. The private sector partner has realise meanwhile that the distributors make little progress in improving their distribution structures and is working on finding a better structured distribution partner who will improve and ease accessibility for interested customers.  Affordability  The Hybrid seeds are actually sold at prices of 4600 KES/kg (Mulato2), 5000 KES/kg (Cayman) and 5500 KES/kg (Cobra) by Advantage Crops LTD. At a seed rate of 8kg / ha seed costs are between 36800 KES/ha (about 368 USD) and 44000 KES/ha (about 440 USD) for 1 hectare of forage. Most farmers plant much smaller surfaces and the investment can be used for 10 years, but however many farmers are hesitant to spend this money. Meanwhile the distributors offer smaller packages of seeds for affordable prices, but if we want to manage go to scale, prices have to be reduced. Papalotla is aware of that and are checking how prices can be reduced. Private Dairy sector The private dairy sector in Kenya is well developed. The biggest players on the market are Brookside and New KCC, these two are active in all milk producing areas and often dominate the market. But there are also a lot of smaller dairy enterprises which ensure milk uptake from the dairy farmers in the different regions. Often the different dairy enterprises compete in the same areas for the milk. Despite that competition for milk, the influence on milk prices is limited and actually (end of 2019) under pressure. Milk prices are the most determine reason for farmers to whom they deliver, but other factors also have an influence, like reliability or additional services offered. As feed availability is the most important factor for the productivity of dairy cows and the availability of feed is influenced by the seasons. Dairy enterprises realize more and more the importance of improving availability and quality of feed around the year to reduce the fluctuation of milk intake which varies from 10% at Mount Kenya Milk (Meru Dairy cooperative union society) and up to 75% at Kieni dairy. We have a close (informal) cooperation with Meru Dairy cooperative union society (Meru Dairy). Meru dairy is the umbrella for actually 54 dairy cooperatives located in and around the close surroundings of Meru County. SNV’s Kenya Market led Dairy Project supported 15 Dairy cooperatives of Meru dairy along the value chain over 6 years. CIAT joined in 2018 with the improved forages to improve feed availability and quantity. When SNV closed the project in mid 2019 Meru Dairy and CIAT decided  to continue the common efforts to scale the uptake of improved forages by their 72000 members. After having started in 2018 with 18 demonstration plots, mainly on private farms and in 2 dairy cooperatives, the number of plots raised to more than 50 in 2019’s long rainy season. We changed our approach from the short rainy season 2019 on to concentrate more on dairy cooperatives. The expectation is, that the exposure of forages to the dairy cooperative members is higher in this way and forage planting by the members will increase. With the demoplots added in 20 cooperatives, we now have a total of 70. The same approach we have chosen in Eldoret, where we register also a growing interest of dairy cooperatives in improved forages. As the demoplot approach showed very positive effects in Meru, we have decided to support up to 10 dairy cooperatives with demoplots.   A 3rd cooperation partner from 2020 on are Kieni dairy, which are situated in the less favourable environment of Laikipia and receives about 500 mm of rainfall in average years. They collect about 20,000 l of milk / day (wet seasons) with decreases dramatically in dry season. Biggest challenge is feed availability, especially in the dry seasons. Kieni dairy is supported by SNV’s 2scale project, CIAT is partnering with them and will support the establishment of up to 35 demo plots in the 7 associated dairy cooperatives to showcase the improved forages and feed in technical information for trainings of the 7000 members. Conclusion The central challenge for a scaling uptake of the forages is the availability of seeds. CIAT is working on connecting Papalotla and its distributors to the dairy enterprises and cooperatives, to make seeds easier accessible. Some have agro input shops where the forage seeds could compliment the offer of the shop, but even others could serve as distributors of forage seeds to their members. We have discussed different models how that could work but finally that have to be decided between Papalotla, the distributor(s) and the dairy cooperatives. 

Report on the establishment of partnerships with the private forage seed and dairy sector in Kenya

https://cgspace.cgiar.org/bitstream/10568/106920/1/3.4.2.2%20Establishment%20of%20partnerships.pdf

Report on the establishment of partnerships with the private forage seed and dairy sector in Kenya

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