By Antynet Ford

Togg Farm in Mathaare slums cannot keep up with the demand for its goats milk and yoghurt from slum dwellers and customers as far as commercial Westlands, with too little space to add any more goats after starting with just three and now often topping 30 animals.

“When we started it in 2014, it was very hectic as goat milk is a norm people in the slums were not used to. We started doing advocacy and telling people the importance of taking goat milk, together with its products,” said Kelvin Uduny, who runs the Mathsre goat farm with his business partner Sylvester Odhiambo

“As time went by people were being sent to come and buy it here because in supermarkets it’s very expensive as a litre is almost Sh400. For us, being that we are in the slum area, we sell one litre at Sh200. The orders are made by people as far as Westlands and we do deliver to them,” .

“Instead of only doing fresh milk, we thought of value addition and that’s how we settled on cheese and yoghurt because the prices are a bit higher than fresh milk and it has grown really much. We had the fresh milk which we pack in one and half litre containers. When a customer places an order, we deliver or they come pick it at the farm. We had extra milk and that’s also another point on why we chose value addition for cheese and yoghurt,” said Sylvester.

“For yoghurt we pasteurise the milk by heating then we add gelatin and also sugar,” he said.

“The production of the yoghurt depends on how the milking is. If we are having over ten goats being milked, we always produce yoghurt, but if the number is less, only milk is sold,” said Kelvin.

But the farm’s number of goats is now strictly limited by space.

“The slum area is over populated with a high demand for the milk yoghurt especially with the pregnant women and young children, but the space to rear the goats is too small. The highest number of goats I have had is 32. The current number I have is 26 because I keep on selling some to avoid overcrowding in the small space,” said Kelvin.

“We always have the zeal and motivation to expand and grow the number for more milk and yoghurt production, but space is a very big challenge.”

“Feeding the goats is also a bit expensive. For the person who supplies the feeds to me, I always pay Sh3500 every month. I supplement the feed with Lucerne grass which is even more expensive for me. So in a month, you’ll get that I buy ten bales only, because a single bale ranges between Sh300 and Sh350. So I have to maintain the goats and not exceed some number because feeding is expensive,” he said.

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“The milking is done one month after the goat produces and the young goat is weaning. The milking is done once a day to also allow the young goats to feed on the milk as they are not completely weaned until they are four months old,” he said.

“At Togg Farm we started the rearing of the dairy goats for milk, meat and breeding services in the slums of Mathaare. It is during the rearing that I realised that I could do value addition by making yoghurt and cheese from the extra milk and selling to the community around the Mathaare area and beyond,” said Kelvin.

“We started with local Toggenburg breed from Kiamaiko as a group way back in 2014. The ministry boosted us with grants and it helped us build the current structures and three dairy goats which we started with. One died during the process and the two are what we have grown currently into Togg Farm,” he said.

“In future I would want to construct modern structures for rearing the goats and see more youths employed at Togg Farm. I would also want to expand beyond Mathaare slums because the demand for goat milk and yoghurt is increasing with time as days move by,” he said.

“Farming is about the mindset. The white collar jobs cannot be enough for all of us.”.

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