Dow and Packaging Industries Limited (PIL) announce Mama Silage Bags, a breakthrough silage storage technology for small-scale dairy farmers in Kenya. The Mama Silage innovative bags are designed to help improve silage storage and reduce waste. By enabling Kenyan farmers to better preserve animal feed for dairy cows, it helps to provide a steady supply of milk and, consequently, a steady income for farmers throughout the year.
The Mama Silage Bag is designed with a unique multilayer film structure containing Dow’s high-performance ELITE Enhanced Polyethylene Resins & INNATE Precision Packaging Resins, which gives the bag strength and toughness, making it durable and enabling longer shelf storage and multiple reuses.
“Dow’s unique technology has helped us develop a solution that can truly tackle the needs of a growing and demanding market. With 80 percent of the milk produced in Kenya coming from smallholder dairy farmers, the local community was urgently seeking a solution that could help them reduce losses caused by traditional silage storage methods,” commented Vaishali Malde, product development manager for Packaging Industries Limited. ‘’With Mama Silage Bag’s innovation, farmers can now better manage their animal feed needs and cope with uncertain climatic conditions.”
The Mama Silage Bag innovation has been the first project in which PILhas explored the opportunity to become a brand owner for an agricultural packaging product, looking to address a gap in sustainable incomes for the dairy sector in their region.
“Mama Silage Bag has been a self-learning collaborative project”, said Leonard Kareko, Dow account manager for agricultural films in Kenya. “We had to connect and speak directly with the farmers in Kenya. We also had to train them in their local language so they could appreciate the added value the product can bring to the table. For us, Mama Silage’s success goes beyond the product itself. It’s about developing a solution which truly has farmers in mind by helping them overcome their greatest challenges. We couldn’t have done it without the extensive market knowledge of our valued partner, Packaging Industries Limited.”
Kristen Bovid, Dow Global Citizenship program officer, further explains “At Dow, we see the role of business as a catalyst for change, a driver not only for sustainable and innovative solutions, but also for solutions that have a social impact. We could not be prouder of the opportunities this project represents for the communities.”