Livestock and diets

(Credit: Oliver Migliore)

Households whose cows produced more milk consumed more milk at home, which primarily benefited young children. While dairy earning made up a larger proportion of income, total income did not differ from that of households with less productive cows. Fewer households with more productive cows regard buying food as a top priority, while more think school fees and inputs for their cows are a high priority.

Lessons Learned

The project was essentially an information gathering exercise that did not generate insights into dietary diversity and nutrition or the process of increasing dairy productivity.

Problem

Livestock and animal products can be a wonderful source of some important micronutrients, such as vitamin A and iron, and drinking a little milk each day can dramatically improve the nutritional status of poor people, especially mothers and young children. Livestock also contribute to income and social capital, which may enhance nutrition directly and indirectly through higher income. Knowledge gaps remain, for example about whether the need to take care of dairy cows leaves mothers less time to care for their young children. The International Livestock Research Institute, Heifer International’s East Africa Dairy Development project and Emory University, Georgia USA, sought to fill some of these gaps.

Agricultural biodiversity

Dairy cattle

The Project

The project studied 94 households in three Nandi communities in the Kipkelion District of Kenya’s Rift Valley Province. The Nandi people traditionally drink milk, with three-quarters of the surveyed households drinking milk daily. Households were placed in one of three categories, depending on their level of milk production. “No milk” households had no cows producing milk, “emerging” households produced less than 6 litres a day from their best cow, and “advanced” households produced more than 6 litres a day from their best cow.
Using a variety of survey techniques, the project asked three linked questions:
•    If households produce more milk for sale, do they also use more milk at home?
Yes; advanced households drank 4.9 litres, more than double the 1.8 litres consumed by emerging households. Young children benefited most from the milk consumed at home, with those aged between 12 and 18 months getting more than younger children, who were probably still being breastfed. Children between 12 and 18 months in advanced households get more than twice the amount of milk daily than children in no milk and emerging households, and for children between 18 and 24 months the difference is even greater. Although adults were clear that it was important to give milk to children to encourage proper growth, the project has not yet established whether increased consumption translates into nutritional impact.
•    If households earn more money from dairy sales, how does that affect spending on food quality and quantity and healthcare?
Advanced households derive 23% of their income from milk sales, compared to 9% for emerging households and 0% for no milk households, although total income for emerging and advanced households is very similar (11,495 Ksh vs 11,830 Ksh). Among emerging households, 65% say that food is the top priority for spending dairy income, with 17% each for school fees and dairy inputs as top priority. This compares with a lower figure -- 45% -- of advanced households saying food is a top priority, and higher figures – 28% and 21% respectively -- for school fees and dairy inputs. The study revealed no differences in actual food purchases or healthcare spending. It did turn up some interesting hints of gender differences in decisions to allocate milk to sales or consumption, with men having more power in advanced households.  
•    If women spend more time working to increase dairy production, does that affect the time they devote to breastfeeding?
Women in emerging households spend almost twice as much time in dairy activities as women in advanced households (on average 112.1 vs 56.9 minutes in the previous 24 hours). However, there were no obvious differences in time devoted to other income-generating activities or to time spent away from the youngest child. Women in emerging households were almost twice as likely to leave their youngest child with a pre-teen sibling while they were dairying. All of the women in no milk and advanced households who had a child under 12 months were still breastfeeding, while only 87% of women in emerging households were doing so. This may reflect competing demands for the time of women in emerging households.
Impact
The project was a cross-sectional survey designed to gather data, and as such was not intended to have a direct impact on participants.

Further opportunities

Some of the project findings, for example on the workload of mothers in emerging households and the altered spending patterns of advanced households, suggest avenues for further research. A clear link between drinking more milk and other outcomes, while intuitively appealing, has yet to be formally demonstrated.

Further information