Dairy hubs

ILRI was involved in the design, implementation and evaluation of dairy hubs in four countries of East Africa (Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda). Active suppliers of producers organisations supported by the East African Dairy Development project have seen an increase in milk productivity in their cross bred animals of between 50 and 60 per cent depending on the countries, with the largest increase recorded in Kenya. Even though difference in methodology between baseline and final evaluation prevents clear comparison, overall, there has been an increase in dairy income in nominal terms for the three countries and in real terms for Uganda (between 30 % and 130 %). For cattle keepers to have long-term access to markets, beyond a project support, the team developed a tool that assesses the PO’s progress towards sustainability using both production and business dimensions, for example its ability to run Board elections regularly and freely or PO members’ ability to access feed inputs on credit. A Producers Organisation ‘graduates’ when it reaches a certain score (60 %), meaning that external support, from development partners, is no longer required. Data have shown that on average, it takes 7.3 years for a PO to reach ‘graduation’. Sites in Kenya and Rwanda have progressed significantly faster than Ugandan sites, while preexisting sites have done so much faster than all the other hub types.