Posted on September, 18, 2017 at 09:39 am
By STANLEY KIMUGE
Milk producers in most parts of the country can sigh with relief following a slight drop in the price of animal feeds.
A spot check in some of the agro-vets in Eldoret town shows that the prices of a bag of dairy meal have gone down.
“We have felt some reduction as most of the retail shops have slashed the cost by between Sh100 and Sh200,” said Mr Richard Tuwei, chairperson of Kenya Dairy Farmers’ Federation.
He, however, warned that some retailers were out to take advantage of the situation and use cheap concentrates, including imported rice germ from neighbouring countries, that will lower the quality of the feeds.
“There are those who have slashed the prices by huge margins, which we suspect are using low quality materials. However, since we are headed to harvest season, we expect with the availability of these raw materials, quality will improve,” notes Mr Tuwei.
Mr David Chombet, a dairy farmer from Uasin Gishu County said the cost of dairy meal is still high despite government intervention via waiving duty on imported yellow maize.
Animal feed prices are estimated to contribute to about 60 per cent of total cost of production at farm level.
The costs have started falling after duty-free yellow maize was shipped in, although the imports are only trickling in.
“We have witnessed price reduction in prices of animal feeds following importation of yellow maize,” says Mr John Gathogo, publicity and marketing chairman at the Association of Kenya Feeds Manufacturers.
In some of the retail shops in the North Rift, a 70-kilogramme bag of dairy meal retails at between Sh2,200 and Sh3,000, while a 50 kilogramme bag is sold at between Sh1,400 and Sh1,800, depending on the protein concentrates.
Animal feeds manufacturers said they had registered significant improvement in production after months of operating below capacity due to shortage of raw material.
The Ministry of Agriculture, however, says traders and millers are not importing much of the yellow maize as expected despite having a duty-waiver window that will remain open until June next year.
Source: Daily News