Mt. Kenya Dairy Trip

Happy Thanksgiving! No turkey or pilgrims in Kenya. I even had to work today.

K-Rep sent me to visit some rural milk chilling plants to evaluate their future investment potential. The milk chilling plants are supported by the East African Dairy Development Project (EADD), will provide thousands of jobs and create massive milk revenues for rural farmers. Like the village banks, the chilling plants are owned and operated by the farmers who receive nice dividend payments when times are good.

A team joined me from a fantastic organization called TechnoServe which is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and is involved in setting up these milk chilling plants. TechnoServe provides the technical assistance and training involved in running a chilling plant.

We drove up the slopes of Mt. Kenya near Nyeri and met with a group of dairy farmers in the lush valleys of the Central Province. K-Rep is much less involved in this program (at this point) so I did not have any opportunities to give speeches or do some dancing…

More pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/nat.robinson/MtKenyaAndNairobi