Nuru Kenya 2022 Dairy Report
Authors: Thomas Boswell and Heath Prince (Ray Marshall Center), and Fatuma Nyanjong (Nuru Kenya) Casey Harrison, Matt Lineal, and Ian Schwenke (Nuru International)
Date: December 2022
Publication Type: Report, 15pp.
This report is commissioned by Nuru International

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In 2008, Nuru Kenya (NK) set out to provide meaningful choices that empower communities to lift themselves out of poverty in a sustainable way. The integrated Nuru model seeks to address three key areas of need: 1) food insecurity, 2) inability to cope with economic shocks and 3) unnecessary disease and death. From inception, NK developed agriculture, financial inclusion and healthcare programs as solutions for these areas of need by using a co-creative program planning process.

Programs have evolved over the years, and NK has been involved in an increasing number of programs and activities. This report reviews NK’s 2022 impact in the dairy sector, which represents a large portion of their overall programs across two counties, with data in Migori County stretching back to 2017, and new data becoming available this year in Homa Bay County, Kenya. To track impact in the dairy sector, the NK and Nuru International Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning teams collect and analyze data across programs using select survey and analysis methods. Since 2016, Nuru International has partnered with the Ray Marshall Center, an applied research and policy institute, to better understand program outcomes and impacts.

Within the Dairy Program, NK aims to increase milk yields and incomes for farmers, alongside the promotion of a suite of best practices for farmers to follow in order to ensure the best health and production of their animals, as well as provide training on fodder production, and artificial insemination to eligible farmers. Participant households are all members of farmer cooperatives, through which they receive services. Dairy inputs are disbursed on loan and coupled with training and extension services. As members of cooperatives, households repay their loans and increase on-farm income. This enables them to better cope with economic shocks. The cooperatives redistribute loan repayments as a revolving fund that members can access to support local economic growth.

Throughout Kenya, 2022 was a turbulent year. The COVID-19 pandemic continued to disrupt the economy, general elections in August 2022 led to months of economic stagnation due to fears of violence, and prices spiked to historic levels due to global inflation as well as the conflict in Ukraine which saw skyrocketing prices for key farm inputs and fuel for transportation. Despite these events, Nuru Kenya still had a very successful year in the dairy sector. Key findings of this Nuru Kenya 2022 Dairy Report include the following highlights:

• Nuru dairy farmers increased milk yields by 79% over the 2017 baseline, to an average of 3.22 liters per cow per day in Migori County.
• Net profit from dairy activities in 2022 was on average $237 per farmer in Migori County, an income increase of 180% over baseline in 2017.
• 89% of farmers in Migori County are now using best management practices, an increase from 55% of farmers adopting best practices in 2020. Nuru qualifies adoption as farmers adopting at least three of four critical dairy best management practices.
• In Homa Bay, Nuru Kenya was able to gauge initial baseline impact from program expansion, seeing farmers with an average annual net profit of $429, and an average yield of 5.83 liters per cow per day.