Kenya among 5 countries selected for new agricultural milk-producing technologies

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation annual report has listed Kenya among five countries whose agricultural technology is expected to save millions of children suffering from malnutrition across the globe.

The Goalkeepers report released on Tuesday projects that by 2050, 40 million more children will suffer from hunger’s worst effects which include stunting and wasting. Stunting is where children don’t grow to their full mental or physical capacity while wasting, is a condition where children become weak and emaciated, leaving them at much greater risk of developmental delays and death. 

The humanitarian organization says that new agricultural technologies for milk production may be the ultimate solution for child stunting, especially in sub-Saharan Africa where more than half of child deaths occur.

The technologies in five countries among them Kenya, India, Ethiopia,  Nigeria, and Tanzania are expected to step up milk production upto three times and prevent over 109 million cases of child stunting.

“A Race to Nourish a Warming World,” projects that without immediate global action, climate change will condemn an additional 40 million children to stunting and 28 million more to wasting between 2024 and 2050. Scaling up solutions now can avoid this outcome, while also building resilience to climate change and spurring much-needed economic growth,” stated the report.

The report included testimonials from farmers and experts where a Kenyan dairy farmer in Maili Nne, Coletta Kemboi who participated in a training with MoreMilk, lauded the programme for turning her life around.

Coletta Kemboi, a dairy farmer in Maili Nne, Kenya, who participated in a training with MoreMilk, writes, “Before, there were some traces of unclean milk, but since I went through the training, they [inspectors] have come to our shop around three times and their tests are proof that our milk is good…The extra money we are earning goes to the farm…We are able to pay my three children’s school fees,” she stated.

Consequently, Bill Gates underscored the impact of climate change which has resulted in global warming, drought and hunger globally saying that if not resolved, it would make the world more deadly and hard for the majority.

“The best way to fight the impacts of climate change is by investing in nutrition...Malnutrition makes every forward step our species wants to take heavier and harder,” Gates writes.

“But the inverse is also true. If we solve malnutrition, we make it easier to solve every other problem. We solve extreme poverty. Vaccines are more effective. And deadly diseases like malaria and pneumonia become far less fatal.”

According to the Gates Foundation, In 2023, the World Health Organization estimated that 148 million children experienced stunting and 45 million children experienced wasting.