Demo Dairy Farmer Nakuru County

How can I and my farm help small holders in the community?

We present you a trainingprogramme in which you will learn to upgrade your dairy farm till the level of farming as a business and you will become demo farmer for small holders.

You will be trained by experienced Kenyan trainers!

For whom:

• Demofarmers  of medium and large scale dairy farms who want to make steps in farming as a business!
• Each subcounty to deliver a demo farmer
• Participants do work on their own farm or send the farm manager to the training
• If you are open minded to other farmers and new developments and knowledge
• General; 50/50 female/male students

Why this training programme?

Together with the County of Nakuru and Dairy Cooperative Union  a selection of dairy farms will be made.

Each year we will train  minimum 20 demo farmers in Nakuru county in the demo farm training programme.

After being trained during 5 weeks and possibility to go to the Netherlands for a practical period,  they will be point out as demo farmers.

These demo farmers will execute small practical trainings (farmer field schools) on the chosen topics towards the small holders and will influence them to upgrade their farm and way of farming to create more added value, income.

Each demo farmer has to influence  70 small holders (in groups) attending the farm but also group-excursions to the small holder farms and advising them to make steps. This will be done in cooperation with the extensionists of the county.

The DEMO farmers will develop their farm till the level of a business unit (commercial farm) with good input and output on income/profit and in real  balance with animal welphare, climate conditions, biodiversity (plants, insects, animals, soil) and in harmony with the people on the farm, the neighbours and the surrounding of the farm and the consumers of the products.

These farms will be yearly monitored by the project partners RVIST/PDTC and the other demo farmers in study groups.

What do we do:

in 1 year time you will have 25 training days in all technical issues and managementprogrammes and economics

Home assignments to  improve your own farm

after the first year you will have 1 month practical period in the Netherlands on  a family dairy farm

Results after the training:

You go back home with your own technical improvement plan, ready to start!

You will:

• Gain more milk and more household/business income;
• Have higher productivity and use less land, by more pasturing and less ranching;
• Utilise some fodder crops to overcome the dry periods;
• Improve the health and growth of calves and fertility of the cows and production of the cows;
• Use your land in more biobased/ecological principles, for example in using the organic manure.
• You work closely together with the extensionists, farmers union and the training organisation influencing the small holders