Josephine Mutuku and her husband, Joseph, are a lively couple. They joke and tease each other easily, Josephine sometimes rolling her eyes when Joseph tries to speak for her. Together, they raised two children, Tedy Mutuku and Judy Mutuku. They also now have two grandchildren.
Josephine learned about Heifer and the Food for All project in 2015, when a simple stop to buy poultry at her neighbor’s house utterly transformed her life. Her neighbor was leading a training session on dairy farming, and Josephine was intrigued.
The Food for All project focuses on reducing food and nutrition insecurity in the eastern parts of Kenya. Heifer partnered with five local dairy cooperatives to enhance farmer business development and increase milk productivity and production of cows owned by a targeted 10,000 project households.
In Kenya, a majority of the population — 75 percent — live in rural areas, with 61 percent relying on agriculture for their livelihoods.
But the climate in the area makes it hard — prone to drought and lacking water, healthy herds and flourishing crops are both hard to come by.
“I was reluctant before to start dairy farming because I was not sure [about the] climate of this area,” Joseph says.
But Heifer taught the couple how to grow their own drought-resistant fodder and store it safely in a roofed enclosure, ensuring they could feed their cattle even during periods of drought. We provided them with brachiaria and boma rhodes, two types of grass that grow well in dry conditions, and desmodium, a legume that is high in protein and equally drought-resistant.
Combining the plants creates a rich diet that helps maximize the amount of milk each cow produces while ensuring they can produce it year-round. The steady supply earns the family more than $1,000 USD a month from the Heifer-supported Makueni Dairy Farmer’s Cooperative, which collects milk from 680 farmers.
This steady income enabled Josephine and Joseph to hire a few young workers to help on the farm.
“The more you help, the more God blesses you,” says Josephine, who wears colorful clothing and bright lipstick. “The more you give to your group, [the more] your people are becoming strong.”
Now, with a successful farming enterprise under their belts, Joseph and Josephine graciously share what they’ve learned with others. They pass on fodder to other farmers and pass on milk to their workers — demonstrating an important lesson they learned from Heifer.
With your steadfast support as a Friend of Heifer, we can provide the long-term teaching and valuable resources that empower hardworking farmers like these to build secure, prosperous lives — rain or shine.
