Kenya facing acute shortage of livestock feeds

The country’s annual deficit of livestock feed stands at 33m metric tonnes, a move that has adversely affected livestock production.

To address the shortage, the State has in the last two years invested over Ksh 55 billion to support the fodder industry according to the Ministry of Agriculture.

According to Dr. Stanley Mutua, the head of Animal Feeds and Nutrition at the ministry, the country annually produces 22m metric tonnes of feed against a demand of 55m million metric.

Dr. Mutua said out of 22m metric tonnes of feed produced by farmers, 46pc of it went to waste due to post-harvest losses caused by poor storage feeds of fodder harvested.

“The government has pumped more than Ksh 55B in the last two years to support enhanced local production of feed in the country to meet market demand and curb imports”, said Mutua.

Mutua was addressing the press on the sidelines of a capacity building workshop for a Resilient African Feed and Fodder Systems Project which aims to support National Feed inventories for individual countries.

He said the government had prioritized key energy and protein rich feed value chains including sorghum, sunflower and cotton seeds, soya, black soldier fly that will help meet quality demands.

This he said will enhance production of livestock for farmers, boost livelihoods for families and help reduce malnutrition among children which currently stands at 26pc.

To address huge post-harvest losses, Dr. Mutua said the government seeks to invest in feed storage hubs in every county with a capacity to store up to 100,000 bales for each unit.

David Maina from African Union InterAfrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR0, said the feed and fodder sector was yet to recover from the recent drought, climate change and the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

Maina said that in the last drought season that hit the continent in 2021 -2022, Kenya lost 2.5m heads of livestock due to prolonged lack of pasture and water.

He added that AU-IBAR was supporting individual countries to invest more resources in the sector while creating feed inventory that will cushion farmers from looming calamities.

“Most African countries rely on importation of livestock feeds due to their system inefficiencies and this project aims to build their capacity to reverse this trend”, said Maina.

Prof. Isabelle Baltenweck from the International Livestock Research Institute said the organization was helping countries through remote sensing and community based data collections methodologies to inform better policy decisions.

She said the analyzed data would enable countries to better assess their feed banks, prepare forecasts and mitigate future aftershocks such as drought, flooding and climate induced challenges.

The post Kenya facing acute shortage of livestock feeds first appeared on KBC.

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