First Blog of the Summer for the Cow Project 2015
We have all arrived safe and sound
in the town of Mukurweini, where the Veterinarians Without Borders-Canada
Smallholders Dairy Project partners with the Prince Edward Island NGO – Farmers
Helping Farmers (FHF). Mukurweini is located in the Kenyan highlands, about
three hours northwest from Nairobi. The land here is beautiful with its’
rolling hillsides, red earth, and abundant vegetation (picture included as
words cannot do it justice). This year, three student interns are working with
veterinarian and PhD student, Dr. Shauna Richards, on research projects on
dairy cow welfare and nutrition. The student interns include Maggie from the
University of Calgary, and Sarifa, also from the University of Calgary and
myself (Mira) from the University of Saskatchewan. Our first week has been a
great success; we settled into our home for the summer, had a tour of the milk
processing facility, and began to visit farms enrolled in the research
projects.
On our first day in Mukurweini, we
got a tour of the milk processing facility.
The Wakulima Dairy was incredibly impressive, not only due to its
excellent organization, but also with the realization that it came from such
modest beginnings. The Wakulima Self-Help Group Dairy is a cooperative of many
smallholder dairy farmers (farmers having one or two dairy cows) that work
together to process and sell milk. The Wakulima Dairy has grown over the years
through their partnership with FHF and now VWB-Canada. Started in 1990 with 35
farmers selling 100 litres of milk a day, the Wakulima Dairy now has over 6500
farmers selling 38,000 litres of milk a day. Twice everyday, milk is collected
by trucks at collection points throughout Mukurweini where farmers bring small
pails filled with a couple of litres of milk. Milk (maziwa in Swahili – this is
an important word for us here!) is brought to the Wakulima Dairy processing
facility where it is tested for quality, pasteurized, homogenized, packaged and
then shipped to Nairobi. There are approximately 200 employees working at the
dairy facility, and it is a major employer in this area.
The next day, we began to visit
farms that are enrolled in the research study. Our goal is to visit five farms
(shambas in Swahili), per day. Each farm is located on a hillside; the
combination of the steep hills and abundant rainfall in the area can make it
can be quite a challenge to get to the farms without slipping! But luckily,
there have been no big falls yet! Each farm keeps their dairy cow (or two cows)
in a small pen with a roof-covered stall for laying down. Both men and women
take care of cows here, but women are the predominant caretakers. Farmers here
practice zero-grazing, meaning they bring food to their cows instead of grazing
them. This is due to the lack of available grazing land and to reduce the
incidence of diseases spread by ticks. VWB-Canada and FHF has been promoting
Napier grass as a good feed source for cows as it is high in protein. This
grass can be found along most of the roadsides here, where it is planted
specifically in certain plots by farmers, who then cut and carry it to their
cows. Napier grass can grow to heights of over 2 metres, but as it increases
past 1.5 meters, it loses a lot of its nutritional value. This is an important
concept that we are working hard to educate farmers on in order to help them
improve the nutrition of their animals.
At each farm, we do a thorough
physical exam of the cow, and collect important information about the cow’s
environment (e.g. can the cow lie down comfortably? Does the cow have access to
water?). Shauna also conducts an interview with the help of our fabulous
translator, Priscilla, to ask farmers about the health and diet of their cow.
We also attach accelerometers to a leg of each cow. Accelerometers are small
devices that record the position of whatever they are attached to in space; we
can use them to see how much time the cow spends lying down or standing. When
cows are comfortable, they spend more time laying down, which results in
increased milk production. The data we are collecting on the behavior of
individual cows helps us gain insight into how we can improve their
environments to help improve their welfare and productivity.
The longevity of FHF’s working
relationship with the Wakulima and partnership with VWB-Canada has led to
improvements in stall designs, cow welfare, and nutrition. However, there is
still much work to be done. Many of the cows we have seen do not have body
weights that are adequate to support good milk production or pregnancies.
Working with farmers to introduce better feeds, improve stall designs, and encourage
better health management of their dairy cows is vital to improving livelihoods
in this area, where the average household income is less than $1000/year. Even
slight increases in milk production can provide a pathway out of poverty by
allowing families to afford their children’s education, improve their
sanitation facilities, and afford a more nutritional diet for themselves. Of
course, all of this is easier said than done, which is why working with people is key. While it is easy to
tell someone what the right thing to feed is, it is far more effective to work
with them to understand their individual needs and challenges and find
realistic solutions that are sustainable in the long term.
We are looking forward to this
upcoming week! We will be pulling out the hammers, nails, and shovels to help
farmers improve their cows’ stalls as well as continuing on with interviews and
physical exams.
On
a geeky veterinary student note, we have seen some really interesting diseases
that are not common or unheard of in Canada. We went to a farm where a cow had
ulcerative lesions on its mouth, suggestive of Foot and Mouth Disease, which is
very common in this area. The cow was okay, but it was great for us to be able
to see what this disease looks like in real life after having read so much
about it in our studies. And of course
we have been practicing lots of California Mastitis Tests, a cheap and effective
test to determine if cows have subclinical mastitis (an infection of the
udder).
Picture captions:
1. “Napier grass”: Shauna teaching a farmer about the
importance of cutting Napier grass short.
2. “Group photo”: Mary is an extremely motivated and
dedicated farmer, and it shows! From left to right: Maggie, Mira, Mary, Sarifa,
and Priscilla.
3. “Processing machine” This machine is where milk is
pasteurized, homogenized, and then pasteurized again at the Wakulima Dairy.
4. “Happy cows produce more milk!”
5. “Transporting Napier grass to farm.”
No comments:
Post a Comment