On the occasion of the EWA-BELT General Assembly, held on September 24th, 2024, at Spazio Cairoli in Milan, Gianni Matteo Crovetto, professor of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences - Production, Landscape, Agroenergy at Università degli Studi di Milano, discussed the theme of the development of mixed farms to implement food security and he presented a case study about dairy production conducted in Kenya by Università degli Studi di Milano.
Professor Crovetto highlighted how mixed farms, which are crops plus livestock, contribute more to food security than crop farms alone, explaining that livestock provides highly nutritious food because they extract all these nutrients from resources not edible by humans, such as pastures, forages, and byproducts; for this reason, the process represents a true example of the real circular economy.
The main issue regards the fact that there is not enough land and self-produced forages to feed the livestock: as a consequence, the purchase of feeds is necessary to keep breeding animals. Professor Crovetto added that human beings need to be fed and since the population keeps growing, an improvement of the production efficiently for both crops and livestock while respecting sustainability for the environment is necessary.
A three-year project on dairy product production was carried out in Kiambu County (north of Nairobi) in Kenya. The project was funded by the Italian Agency for Development, the DW was Caritas Italy, and then other NGOs such as Selim (Milan) and Caritas Nairobi took part in the study. Università degli Studi di Milano was included to study forages and improve the feeding of cows.
The project’s beneficiaries were 2,000 small farmers from 800 different villages: as explained by Professor Crovetto, the area of the investigation was quite extended. Kenya has the highest per capita milk consumption, over 120 liters per year per person, expected to reach more than 200 liters by 2030.
Kenya’s main problem, as encountered during the study, regards small farmers since resources are not enough for all of the population; moreover, one or two hectares produce more than 80% of the population's milk. As a result, the farmers are not capable of producing enough forages and products so they have to purchase them from the market since the demand can’t reach the offer. The production can reach an average of 6 to 8 kilograms of milk per cow per day, which is not enough considering the high demand.
Insufficient environmental sustainability also contributes to this issue, as well as poor access to clean energy, the lack of knowledge and resources to use animal waste and poor knowledge of water storage systems.
Another issue concerns poor animal welfare management and the lack of a formal system for milk collection with local enterprises. Indeed, Kenya doesn't have a system able to collect all the production of milk and the ability to carry huge quantities to the market: as a result, farmers depend entirely on the buyers.
Professor Crovetto explained that sixty-five percent of the dry matter was purchased from the market, and it was even poor in quality yet very expensive: for these reasons, only one-third of the animal’s feed was supplied by the farm.
Researchers realized that if they wanted to improve production efficiency, they needed to switch to more nutritious forages. In addition, they should have started to integrate protein supplements such as soybean, sunflower, and rapeseed which are essential. The results achieved were positive, as over the three years researchers were able to reach a higher milk production: from 8 to 14 kilograms of milk a day.
What was even more beneficial is that researchers adopted 30 small biogas plants, each with 60 or 70 kilograms of manure every two days as a substrate, and they were able to provide gas and energy for families thanks to biogas. Not only these improvements were made, but also a milk collection system and transportation to the market were projected. Furthermore, the water storage system was improved, ATMs were provided and the Boda Boda (local taxi service) so that they could collect more milk in the area and raise the value of the latter.
In conclusion, mixed farms are more valuable and promising than simple crop farms; moreover, independently of the field size and the number of animals, the production efficiency of both crops and livestock must be increased. Technical support must be paired with education, information, and another way of financial support, for example, microcredit. In addition, local actions must be aligned with national guidelines to ensure support at the institutional level. These changes not only increased household food self-sufficiency, but also promoted food security for the entire country.
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