Dairy Farming
Background
Many families that WOPLAH supports face food insecurity. WOPLAH’s various projects including fish farming, poultry rearing, goat rearing, and their kitchen garden project work to combat food insecurity within Support Groups while also supplying income to these households. The Dairy Farming project works in a similar manner: cows are an extremely valuable resource as their milk can be easily sold as a source of income, but the milk also is rich in protein, fat, and nutrients that are essential to sustaining health and well-being for those living positively. Currently milk is sold being out of the WOPLAH Dairy storefront in Mumias, where the proceeds go back into the communities that WOPLAH works with.
Objective
The intended impact of the Dairy Farming program is to increase overall nutrition among community members and provide a source of income. The Dairy Farming program operates as a Circular Agricultural project, meaning that cows are sourced from within WOPLAH and remain a part of the WOPLAH program. For example, the two calves born at the main WOPLAH farm this month will be distributed to two of the Support Groups where they will be raised, milked, reproduce, and the new calves will then be redistributed to different WOPLAH Support Groups. In this way, the Dairy Farming initiative not only provides valuable nutrition and income to WOPLAH members, but it also works to further build community and connection across the thirty-six WOPLAH Support Groups.
The Future
WOPLAH hopes to continue to expand this program in the future to ensure that all groups wishing to partake in Dairy Farming have access to cattle. Additionally, the Dairy Farming plays an integral role in the long-term goal to build and sustain a WOPLAH Farm Store, separate from the WOPLAH Dairy storefront, where not only milk, but yogurt, eggs, honey, and various vegetables grown and produced by WOPLAH members can also be sold.