Tanolope: Bridging Gaps To Ignite Dairy Revolution In Africa

Key Take Aways

• Alex Gathii is the founder of Tanolope Consultancy.

• His Company helps dairy farmers to improve yields.

Born and raised in a humble background in Tetu, Nyeri county, Alex Gathii Gitonga watched his parents struggle to school him. As a reward to his parents Njoroge worked hard in school, performing so well and later joined The University of Nairobi. 

At the University his passion for agriculture especially dairy farming became his core pursuit. He graduated with a Degree in Food Science and Technology from University. Growing in the village, Gitonga happened to be a neighbour to the late environmentalist Prof Wangari Maathai. He drew inspiration from Maathai’s exceptional success in environmental conservation efforts. 

However, after University Education, Prof Maathai took him as his personal assistant where he
worked with her from 2003 to 2008. The following year, Gotonga joined Agritrace Kenya Limited
where he began his career as a dairy farming consultant. 

“In 2009 I was called and integrated to a project called e-dairy project. It was an exciting project of digitization of milk receipts (E-receipts). That was a project I was heading and I was able to work closely with Agritrace leaders and at that point I was able to get my passport to go abroad and my first client was a farmer who wanted to start a dairy in Chuka,” Gitonga says. 

He continue, “I took him to Israel to showcase the technology called Extended Shelf-life Technology (ESL). He was able to see the equipment unfortunately he wasn’t able to buy. But that opened many doors for me.”

Within weeks Gitonga found another client whom he convinced to buy the ESL technology. This time, the client bought the idea and he travelled to Israel with him.  His client was amazed by the technology which according to him was a game changer for any dairy products company. In this trade, he enabled the company he was working for to earn 12 per cent when the client purchased the technology.

Dairy Revolution In Africa

Having seen the business potential in consulting business, Gitonga quit his job to start Tanolope Consultancy. A firm which helps farmers to improve their dairy yields through provision of dairy business development services, feeding solutions and strategic planning. 

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This revolution had to start somewhere, he began with a few Kenyan clients who bought his idea. He also understood that  having multiple skills is vital for him to build a reputable company that will turn around Africa’s dairy industry including his Cowsignal Expertise, a skill vital in monitoring cow’s behaviour to understand deficiencies and ill health. Gitonga says that Tanolope is in 12 African countries where he works with dairy farmers to ensure all requisite farming practices are put in place to maximize milk yields. 

“The whole of Africa only produces 5% of the global milk. The rest come from other parts of the world. So Africa is not in the global map for milk production. So  I thought, suppose I be remembered for causing the dairy revolution in Africa and making Africa to be the dairy powerhouse,” he reiterates.

Training and audit of dairy farms is one of the key practices that Tanolope undertakes to understand the inefficiencies in the farms so as to give recommendations to farmers.  With tools that they have developed, they can easily identify gaps and help farmers to make the correct adjustments in their farms including on feeding practices.

“We do dairy farm visits and training. We provide farmers with online training and when we come to your farm we do an audit using three parameters. We have also developed a 24-hour tool where  we will be able to ask you questions on how you do things in your farm for the last 24 hours and within that we will be able to identify the gaps and make recommendations,” he says. 

Gitonga notes that inefficiencies are plaguing dairy farming in Africa. He says that doing a farm audit will expose deficiencies and inefficiencies. “The reason why we have high cost of production in Kenya is because we have so much deficiencies and inefficiencies,” he says.

“Our main objectives is to ensure that dairy entrepreneurs and farmers establish profitable dairy venture by producing milk at the lowest cost possible and high quality milk and make Africa milk production competitive,” he adds.

Feeding Solutions

According to Gitonga, feeding is the core business in dairy farming as it gives the cows good health necessary for production of milk. However, he says that many farmers believes that milking several times is the secret high production, something that he disagrees with.

“What will determine your profitability in your dairy enterprise is the source of feeds. The quality of your feeds is paramount. Most farmers in Kenya feed their cows with low quality feeds which results in low production of milk,” he asserts adding that Tanalope provides feeds tailored for high production and technical support to dairy farmers.

Addressing Knowledge Gap

In the 21st century, it’s said that data is the new oil. For Tanolope, providing farmers with information on dairy production is critical. Point in case is their online training which Gitonga says it has attracted farmers not only in Kenya but across the world with clients from UK, Australia and even United States. He points out that there is a huge knowledge gap in dairy farming which hinders its growth.

“There is a major knowledge gap in dairy sector in Kenya.We provide free information to our clients. When the World Bank and IMF came with structural adjustment programs in early 80ss and 90s, they remove the extension officers in the field. Our Online Tanalope Dairy Entrepreneurship Masterclass has attracted clients worldwide,” he says.

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One of the biggest problems for every entrepreneur is creation or capturing of the market. Gitonga says it took committed work to win acceptance. However, with time he started seeing the fruits of that work. He says that is the currency of business.

“Building trust and having integrity is everything in a business. People are looking for genuine people providing quality products. Creation of the market is hardest thing because for people to believe in your products it takes a lot of work,” he says.

Advice To Budding Entrepreneurs

Gotonga says that young entrepreneurs should think big and start small. He refutes the idea of doing unnecessary business research saying that starting and running a business is the best way to learn and to get feedback from the market. He also says time ripe for incubation centers for agripreneurs to be set across Africa.

“It’s high time we do incubation for startups in Africa like Konza, but those are for ICT. We need incubation centers for agriculture startups because the next millionaires will be agripreneurs,” he says in conclusion.