Jokes aside, let's start rearing domesticated buffaloes
Xn Iraki
By
XN Iraki
| Oct 28, 2026
India is known for pharmaceuticals and frugal innovations. Check the source of the drugs in your latest prescription or where your motorbike or tuktuk is made. Remember the TVS or Bajaj motorbikes? Can we add cricket to Indian favourites? Curiously, India, despite its proximity to Africa, is rarely in the Kenyan news.
I have suggested its familiarity; we meet Indians every day.
India is now in the news for another reason: a leader in breeding buffaloes. Let me add domesticated buffaloes, not the violent ones that attack lions.
When President Ruto suggested we start importing and breeding buffaloes for their meat and milk, we made fun of it.
READ MORE
Beyond banks: Your invoices could be your next collateral
To outlast your worthy rival in business, what's the sustainable profit margin?
How digital growth is changing Kenya's media landscape
AI shopping forces Kenyan businesses to rethink how they compete
How AI is shaping future of Kenya's e-commerce
Affordable housing push opens new market for electrical firms
Public debt hits 13.48 trillion a few months to 2027 polls
How President Ruto has piled up debt in race to complete legacy projects
Kenyans make fun of anything. Someone should find out the number of Kenyans who have been saved from mental illness by this humour.
Buffaloes are valued for their milk used for making ghee, paneer, khoa, curd, butter, ice cream, sweets, and other dairy products. Online sources indicate murrah, nili-ravi, jaffarabadi, mehsana and surti are some of the popular breeds.
Prof R. Mathivanan from Tamil Nadu University in Coimbatore makes matters clearer, “Indian buffaloes are an important source of milk supply today and yield nearly three times as much milk as cows.
More than half of the total milk produced (55 per cent) in the country was contributed by the 47.22 million milch buffaloes, whereas the 57.0 million cows contribute only 45 per cent of the total milk yield. “
Buffaloes are handier than dairy cattle. That would make them versatile for Kenya’s mostly arid and semi - arid areas where wild buffaloes seem to thrive currently.
Why not exploit that handiness to expand our dairy industry?
Would it not be fun showing off your buffalo herd? That will set you apart from others; remember, we love status.
The costs could be lower because of adaptation to different climatic conditions. I guess their feed would be cheaper too.
Some could add that this will raise the supply of milk and reduce prices.
In some parts of Kenya, cattle are used in ploughing and as a beast of burden; buffaloes would do better.
The most compelling reason to introduce buffaloes is the choice for milk and meat. Choice is central to economics.
Farmers and consumers will get choices. India has given us motorbikes, tuktuks and pharmaceutical products. Why not buffaloes?
It’s a frugal innovation, as anyone who has tried dairying can attest.
The cost of feeding dairy cows is high. They are also too delicate compared with buffaloes.
India is in a space race, exploring the moon and beyond. But India is also down to earth, exploring the possibilities of improving our livelihoods through a different diet and creating jobs.
If we can pick foreign names, foreign political systems and mannerisms, from attire to accent, why not alternative economic models like rearing buffaloes?
Nostalgically, we named cows Thambu, Bìndu, and Ngunù.
You can suggest names for buffaloes. They could use the same names as the cows. After all, buffaloes and cows are close relatives.