Making milk quality assurance work on an unlevel playing field : Lessons from the Happy Cow pilot

Abstract

This report describes and assesses a milk quality assurance innovation, the milk quality tracking and tracing system (MQT&T) and Quality-Based Milk Payment System (QBMPS) project. The project was piloted by Happy Cow Ltd (HC), a medium-scale processor in Nakuru, Kenya, and its milk suppliers. The objective of the pilot project was to offer a proof of concept to track and trace milk quality within a smallholder-dominated supply chain and to develop and implement a payment system based on the quality of raw milk delivered. The assessment adapted the PPPLab Scaling Scan as the main framework to enumerate the various project investments, interventions and achievements and to reflect on the success factors, shortcomings and preconditions required for QBMPS scalability.

Adoption of food safety measures: The role of bargaining and processing producer organizations

“…Kenya has about 700,000 smallholder farmers, owning on average 0.4-1.6 hectares of land, and 1-3 cows, and producing about 80% of the national output (Makoni et al, 2014). Food safety issues in the country have become a matter of growing concern because of increasing demand for dairy products in the cities that have led to longer and food safety risk-prone value chains (Ndambi et al, 2019).…”

“…One possible way to improve food safety in dairy is through smallholder's membership in POs. Farmers benefit from POs services related to food safety including training, coordination of milk collection, monitoring and evaluation of food safety measures, and provision of milk storage equipment (Ndambi et al, 2019). In the next section, we explain the theory relating PO membership to the adoption of food safety measures and add nuance to the role of different types of POs.…”

Characterization of dairy innovations in selected milksheds in Kenya using a categorical principal component analysis

“…In recognition of this significant contribution of the dairy sector to the economy and as a source of livelihoods to smallholder farmers, the national government together with its development partners has been supporting the dairy value chain actors through various public research organizations, universities, training institutes, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and donor-funded programmes. Their support included development of disease resistant fodder, operationalized strategic milk reserves, and procurement of milk coolers for counties, supporting the dairy hub, on-farm feed production and silage making, dairy infrastructure, ensuring quality based payment system, among others (KDB 2016;Rademaker et al 2016;Kilelu et al 2017;Ndambi et al 2019).…”

An overview and analysis of integral tools to monitor people, planet and profit sustainability dimensions of dairy development in East Africa

“…Milk production in smallholder farms can contribute to improving household nutrition and to generating family income and employment of significant numbers of people. However, assuring quality of marketed milk from smallholder-dominated supply chains is challenging and needs to be well managed to avoid public health concerns related with consumption of poor quality milk (Ndambi et al, 2019;Ndambi et al, 2018). Sustainable milk production does not only need to focus on milk production volumes, but also on its quality and safety.…”