Kenya produces more milk than any other country in sub-Saharan Africa including South Africa. The daily maximum temperature of between 75 and 80 deg F (24 - 27 deg C) and rainfall distributed quite evenly throughout the year provide a favorable climate for both cows and forages. However, the management used to produce Kenya's 3.4 million metric tons of milk differs greatly from techniques used in the U.S. A few statistics underscore just how dissimilar the Kenyan and New York dairy industries are: the average herd size in Kenya is 3.2 animals with 1.7 lactating cows and the farm size is 1.7 hectares (4.2 acres) (Bebe et al., 2003) compared to about 110 cows and 85 ha (212 acres ) for New York farms. In the highlands, the heart of the Kenyan dairy industry, where population density is between 450-1200 people per square kilometer (Central Bureau of Statistics and International Livestock Research Institute, 2003), the farms often are less than one hectare. In sub-Saharan Africa, the amount of cultivatable land per capita decreased by one-third between 1970 and 2000 from 0.53 ha to 0.35 ha (Place et al., 2003). Land-poor farmers cannot afford to leave any land 'idle' or fallow without income, but declining crop yields due to soil degradation are intolerable as well. To fully understand the Kenyan dairy system, we must understand the severe and persistent poverty in the region. In Madzuu in Western Kenya (Figure 1), one of the sites where we have been studying the relationship between poverty and soil degradation, we have data from 1989 and 2002 on the percent of the population beneath the Kenyan poverty line (Table 1). Few in this area in which there have been many development projects have managed to escape poverty.
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