The Caprinno brand – a speciality goat milk product currently retailing at the Westgate, Junction and Mega branches of Kenya’s leading supermarket chain, Nakumatt, would be the main attraction here.

Caprinno comes in two forms:

• Pasteurised milk in half litre (US$ 1.35) and I litre (US$ 2.62) packs
• Yoghurt in half litre packs (US$ 1.42) available in banana, vanilla and strawberry flavours.

Caprinno is processed and packed by the Meru Goat Breeders Association (MGBA) whose origins and background are as rich and nostalgic as the nutrient-packed taste of Caprinno products. Goat milk is reported to have medicinal properties and is recommended for infants by doctors worldwide because of its easy digestibility as compared to cow milk.

The Caprinno story dates back about 12 years when FARM-Africa, a UK-based international Non-Governmental Organisation, started an innovative initiative working among poor smallholder farmers in Meru. The ‘Meru Dairy Goat and Animal Health Care Project’ was started in 1995 in the two districts of the former Meru South and Meru Central with three major objectives:

• To improve local goat breeds in the region through community-based cross-breeding with pure Toggenburg goats
• To set up an alternative animal health service delivery system among marginalised communities with little or no access to state veterinary services
• To improve the general livelihoods and nutritional levels of local communities through the production of high quality goats and goat products and by-products

While visiting these places make sure you do not miss the very unique Toggenburg goats reared by the farmers here mostly organised in to breeding groups. Some of the goats can be as large as 90kgs!

The idea, though relatively new in the area, was quite simple; farmers were identified from the poorest regions in the two districts and organised into formal groups. The groups then elected representatives who were taken through a series of intensive training seminars on goat house construction, goat husbandry, group dynamics, breed improvement, basic animal health care and fodder management to prepare them for the task ahead.

Once all the farmers were brought to a similar level of knowledge, the groups were given Toggenburg goats imported from the UK to start breed improvement. The process involved taking the local goat breeds with an average production level of between 200-300ml of milk a day and successively crossing them with the pedigree Toggenburgs to create a new breed with a 75% Toggenburg and 25% local bloodline.

The idea was to harness the high productive qualities of the Toggenburg while at the same time ensuring the resultant breed would be able to withstand the harshness of the tropical climate. A strict breeding programme was maintained to avoid in-breeding and the results were amazing. Within a period of 5 years milk yields had increased from less than one litre a day to 3 litres with some farmers reporting close to 5 litres.

Household nutritional levels greatly improved now that there was an injection of vital proteins into the diet. Incomes from goat and goat milk sales shot up by nearly 50%. Farmers who previously had no source of income apart from odd casual labouring jobs were now fetching a steady Kshs. 20 (about US$ 0.25) per litre of goat milk in their locality. With the arrival of the milk plant at Nkubu, farmers had easy access to the plant and could now supply their milk directly without using middlemen.

The effect of this direct marketing meant that they could reap the full benefits of the value of their milk. At a guaranteed price from the plant of Kshs. 25 (US$ 0.30) per litre of milk, farmers are assured of a steady income throughout the year and since payment is made at the end of every month, the consolidated income allows them to be more organised in their financial planning. Since the plant opened its doors to the farmers, two months have passed and total turnover from the sale of finished valued-added products has increased by 24%.

The plant is run by a small team of professionals employed by the breeders association. Technical backstopping is provided by FARM-Africa on a declining basis while increasingly building the capacity of the association to assume greater responsibility in the future once support comes to an end. For the dairy goat farmers of Meru, the goat continues to be a golden goose that lays their golden eggs.

It has been a long journey and many did not have the patience to wait but those who understood then that Rome was not built in a day are now laughing all the way to the bank. The move from a meagre 200ml a day of milk per goat to an average 3 litres and the rise in value of a goat from only US$ 38.00 to the present value of as much as US$ 418.00 is truly a great feat worthy of emulation in other parts of Kenya if we are to make any headway in achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2020!