A simple but innovative use of insecticide-impregnated nets to protect livestock is doubling and in some cases tripling milk outputs on smallholder dairy farms while also reducing mosquito-borne illnesses in humans in Kisii, Kenya, in the country's western highlands. The FAO project is part of a wider strategy to vastly improve animal health in areas most affected by tropical diseases.
The nets are environmentally safe and have drastically cut the number of flies, mosquitoes and other disease transmitting insect vectors by close to 90 percent, and cases of mastitis, a bacterial disease that can be spread by flies as well as poor hygiene during milking, have been halved on smallholder dairy farms. Farmers also learned basic hygiene measures to reduce illnesses in their cows.
