This past summer, I piloted a high-yield dairy venture in partnership with my Maasai host family. We focus on commercially viable Holstein dairy systems that increase milk productivity in Northern Tanzania while creating stable employment and leadership pathways for Maasai women.
Funding: $10,000 startup capital (½ from Wesleyan COE grant)
Herd: 4 Holstein Friesian cows + 4 calves
Cost basis: ~$1,500 per mature cow
Holsteins are the world’s highest milk producers. Our work is translating that productivity into locally durable systems with standards that can scale.
cow-1.jpg, calf-1.jpg, etc.,
and I’ll wire them up (see note under Photos).
Put your images in the same folder as index.html and replace each “Add photo” tile
with an image tag like:
<img src="farm-1.jpg" alt="Farm" style="width:100%;height:100%;object-fit:cover">
If you paste your photo filenames here, I’ll update the code for you instantly.
Mission statement: Establish a cooperative network of commercially viable Holstein dairy farms that increase milk productivity in Northern Tanzania while creating stable employment and leadership pathways for Maasai women.
The Maasai—whose livelihoods are historically tied to pastoralism and cattle management—often struggle to establish commercially viable dairy operations despite possessing large cattle herds. Tanzania’s challenge is low productivity per cow, not herd size.
Maasai women often contribute most to daily dairy labor and family income but are disproportionately excluded from dairy income. Building women-led systems strengthens household security and makes the dairy economy durable.
Women-centered training, leadership roles, and economic pathways anchored in dairy operations.
Elite dairy genetics protected by standards, guidance, and disciplined expansion.
Routine prevention + rapid response systems to protect herd value and keep productivity stable.
Feed discipline to convert genetics into liters—standardized to prevent drift and enable replication.
Milking hygiene, heat management, and recordkeeping as operating standards that make results consistent.
One nucleus farm becomes a training center; expansion happens only after benchmarks are met.
We are building a nucleus Holstein dairy farm that functions as a parent organization and training center. As trained women hit competency and productivity benchmarks, they can launch small production units (2–3 Holstein Friesian each) under the cooperative, maintaining shared protocols, veterinary relationships, and genetics guidance to reduce failure risk. Over time, women-owned farms are linked into a controlled production network with uniform standards and aggregated output.
Email: mvdairyfarms@gmail.com
Instagram: @mvdairyfarms
Plus Code: JV92+X5M
Area: Leganga, Tanzania
Open the location using the Plus Code:
For collaboration, training partnerships, or support: email us and we’ll respond with next steps.