Improving productivity in Kenyan smallholder dairy systems has the potential to greatly improve the supply of milk to processors and make substantial improvements in rural incomes.

Poor milk yield in these systems is often attributed to poor genetics, but we discovered that frequently, production is also constrained by a lack of knowledge, particularly with regard to husbandry, feeds and feeding practice.

This poster, produced for the Tropentag 2016 conference, shares how the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is working with NGOs, dairy cooperatives and GIZ, in the framework of a German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)-funded project in western Kenya, to assess the potential of dairy farmers to implement new technologies that will further improve their operations.

The poster outlines the training concept, selection procedure of farmers, and summarizes first results on knowledge implementation in the communities following the return of the trainees.