How to build a better cow

There's a $61.7 billion product in Africa that you probably use almost every single day.

It’s in your morning tea, in porridge, or as part of your ugali lunch.

It’s in the butter you spread on your bread and in your fried liver.

But before we tell you what it is, let us know…

That product is milk!

For communities like the Maasai in Kenya and the Fulani in West Africa, milk is life.

The Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania who have been herding cattle for about three centuries use milk to bless weddings and rites of passage. 

For the Fulani, a people who have moved with their herds across West Africa for centuries, milk has always been more than a meal.

It's been the backbone of their economy, a product to be traded, sold, and shared, connecting communities long before modern markets existed.

It should be no surprise, then, that milk is big business today. 

In 2024, Africa’s dairy market was worth $61.7 billion. 

And it’s only growing.

But while demand for milk grows, Africa’s local supply can't keep up. Farmers come up against big challenges in productivity, storage and animal health.

These gaps slow milk on its way to your glass.

But when we break down the journey from cow to cup, there’s a ton of opportunity for innovation.

A healthy dairy cow’s life runs on a simple rhythm: grow, have a calf, produce milk, rest, and repeat.

Every time she gives birth, she produces milk for about 10 months. 

Then, she gets a well-deserved 60-day "dry period" to rest and regain her strength for the next cycle. 

With good care and steady food, she can keep this rhythm going for years, providing a reliable supply of milk for the farmer.

That’s ideal.

But in Africa, where 90% of Kenya’s milk, for example, comes from smallholder farmers with just a handful of animals, this rhythm is constantly under threat.

For starters, the cows are constantly under attack. 

They’re hit by diseases like foot-and-mouth or bitten by ticks, and with few vets around, farmers are often on their own. 

Then there’s the weather.

Long droughts leave cows eating leftover corn stalks, which have almost no nutritional value.

It's like trying to run a marathon on a diet of crackers; it fills the stomach but provides none of the energy needed to stay healthy or produce milk.

The result is a brutal downward spiral.

A struggling, underfed indigenous cow in Ethiopia might produce just 1.5 litres a day. 

The common East African Zebu breed does a bit better at 3 litres.

But both are a fraction of the global average of 10 litres.

That tiny amount of milk brings in so little cash that the family has to spend it all on their own needs, leaving nothing to feed the cow properly.

So tomorrow, the cow produces even less milk.

It’s a cruel loop, powered by the dramatic swing between the feast and famine of the seasons.

For most of Africa’s herds, life is a story of feast or famine.

During the rainy season, it's a feast. 

The grass is lush, green, and packed with protein. Cows get healthy, gain weight, and produce plenty of milk.

But when the dry season hits, it’s a famine. 

The grass withers into tough, yellow straw with almost no nutritional value. It’s the lean season for everyone.

Farmers fight back with everything they have, like preserved forage, mineral licks, and special feeds like Napier grass. 

But it’s a constant, expensive struggle.

So what if you could break the cycle? What if, instead of just finding better food, you could…

Across dairy farms on the continent, the same math plays out every season.

Local Zebu cows produce about 3 litres per day during good times. When drought hits, that drops to barely 1 litre.

For farmers scraping by on $2-3 per day from milk sales, one bad season can wipe out months of progress.

The solution isn't more feed or better care.

It's better genetics.

Companies like Geneplus Global are bringing artificial insemination services directly to small farms across East Africa.

It's the difference between subsistence and sending kids to school.

But genetics are only half the battle.

Roads are rough, clinics are far, and supplies often run out.

And in most rural places, that means even getting vaccines and solutions from companies like GenePlus is a logistical nightmare.

Roads wash out during the rainy season. Cold storage doesn't exist. And by the time vaccines reach remote farms, they've often spoiled in the heat.

The result? Preventable diseases kill thousands of cattle every year.

CowTribe, founded in 2017, tackled this problem with an unusual solution: drones.

When roads become impassable, drones drop vaccine packages to remote villages.

The company has delivered over 2 million vaccines across Ghana, Kenya, and Côte d'Ivoire since launch.

But the real innovation isn't just drones.

It's the mobile platform that connects farmers, veterinarians, and suppliers. The app sends vaccination reminders, tracks animal health records, and ensures vaccines arrive cold and on schedule.

For smallholder farmers, it means the difference between losing livestock to preventable diseases and maintaining healthy herds year-round.

But even healthy, productive cows can't solve Africa's dairy puzzle alone.

Because there's still the question…

In Kenya's dairy sector, small agro-processors face a classic problem: farmers need payment before delivery, processors need milk before payment.

Neither side will budge, so deals fall through and milk spoils.

This is exactly the problem that led Ochich Magero and his co-founder Omer Dogan Dincer to launch TradePulse in 2023.

The Nairobi-based startup created a mobile platform that holds payments in escrow until milk is delivered and verified.

Farmers get guaranteed payment. Processors get guaranteed delivery.

The platform now handles dairy transactions across Kenya, backed by investors including Antler and UNDP.

But for many farmers, an even simpler innovation has made the bigger difference.

Ramah Madiba's idea was almost embarrassingly simple.

What if farmers could track their milk sales through WhatsApp?

In 2022, most Kenyan dairy farmers had no idea what happened to their milk after they handed it over at collection centers.

Was it sold? At what price? When would they get paid?

The lack of transparency meant farmers were constantly getting cheated.

So Ramah built SpaceAI, a WhatsApp bot that sends farmers real-time updates on their milk deliveries, prices, and payments.

Using just WhatsApp messages that arrive automatically.

Over 5,000 farmers now use the system. And according to SpaceAI's data, their average incomes have increased significantly.

It turns out transparency is worth more than any fancy technology.

But one farmer, no matter how innovative, can't supply a city.

This is where the dairy cooperative comes in.

Cooperatives are the backbone of Africa’s dairy industry. 

They pool milk from thousands of small farmers, giving them the scale to negotiate fair prices and access shared services.

Take Mukurweini Wakulima Dairy in Kenya. 

With over 25,000 members, it’s a force.

 It provides affordable vet services, runs its own feed factory, and even operates a credit system so families can get groceries advanced against their milk sales.

It handles over 80,000 litres of milk a day, processing it into yogurt and UHT milk sold across Kenya.

Cooperatives solve the problem of scale. 

And platforms like SpaceAI make them run better. 

SpaceAI turns messy paper ledgers into a simple digital system that tracks milk, automates payments, and builds trust. 

By turning farmers’ production data into credit scores, it unlocks loans they could never access before. 

With fair pay and new financing, cooperatives can finally focus on the bigger challenge. reducing spoilage.

From the moment it leaves the cow, fresh milk is in a race against heat, distance, and bad roads. 

Every bump and every hour under the sun increases the risk of spoilage. 

For a farmer, this means a full day's work could be worthless by sunset.

And for the continent, it’s one more decimal point to the statistic—a third of food in Africa lost to spoilage.

But across the continent, innovators are fighting back with simple, clever ways to buy more time.

The first line of defense is cold. 

By setting up chilling centers at collection points, cooperatives can dramatically slow down bacterial growth. 

This is the crucial first link in building a reliable cold chain, so evening milk is just as fresh as the morning’s.

Next comes logistics. 

To reach the most remote farms, fleets of motorbike riders are hired to zip down dirt roads, collecting milk and getting them to the cooling center before the clock runs out.

At the collection point, quality is king. 

Staff use simple tools like lactometers to check for added water and rapid test kits to screen for safety. 

To ensure accountability, every churn is labelled with the farmer's number, so if a batch goes bad, it can be traced.

The challenges are tough, but the path forward is clear: stronger cold chains, smarter tools, and empowered cooperatives. 

From the Maasai to the Fulani, milk has always been more than food. 

Today, it’s a billion-dollar opportunity.

If farmers, innovators, and policymakers move together, every glass of milk could carry not just nutrition, but prosperity.

That’s the story of milk.

Well…the part of it that can fit into 1,500 words.

We haven’t even touched on processing (powdered, UHT, fresh), how Africa has long relied on imported dried milk, or the different kinds of milk that shape diets across the continent. That’s a whole other glass we’ll pour another day.

For now, we’ll leave you with this: milk isn’t just food, it’s history, culture, and a $61.7 billion business.

What everyday food’s secret life should we uncover next?

👉🏾 Tell us what you're curious about!

Cheers,