eBusiness Weekly
Tapiwanashe Mangwiro
Milk production in Zimbabwe increased by 5 percent in the first four months of 2023, official data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Water, Climate and Rural Development reveals.
The ministry’s latest dairy services department, show that milk output stood at 30,13 million litres during the period under review, up from 28,68 million litres in the comparable period.
Milk intake by processors was up 7 percent in the first four months of 2023 to 27,6 million litres from 25,75 million litres in the comparable period last year.
Retail production, however, declined by 14 percent from 2,92 million litres in the same period last year to 2,52 million litres.
For the time period under examination, an average of 7,53 million litres of milk were produced. The average amount of milk produced in the nation during the same time period last year was 7,17 million litres.
In April 2023, milk production increased by 4,23 percent to 7,52 million litres from 7,21 million litres during the same month last year. In comparison to the prior month, it remained unchanged at 7,52 million litres.
In February 2023, Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Fisheries and Rural Resettlement permanent secretary, Dr John Basera, told The Sunday Mail that imports of milk powder had declined by 17 percent in 2022, dropping from 8,9 million kilogrammes to 7,4 million kilogrammes.
He ascribed the increased production to appropriate interventions made by the Government, private sector and development partners.
“All these interventions and touch points are contained in the Livestock Recovery and Growth Plan, with deliberate programmes which focused on increasing the national dairy herd from 19 000 in 2021 to 29 000 in 2022. This included the state’s dairy heifer programme funded through the private sector,” he said.
The Zimbabwean dairy industry is still under-performing, as evidenced by a reduction in milk yield from 262 million litres in 1990 to less than 37 million litres in 2009 and now a steady increase to 82 million litres in 2021 and 96 million litres in 2022.
“Current demand for milk stands at 130 million litres, and there is a national capacity for processing 400 million litres per annum. The Government has focused on the need for an inclusive and creatively organised dairy value chain to optimise stakeholder linkages and improve information flow and equity,” said Addmore Waniwa of the Ministry of Agriculture’s dairy services department.
Furthermore, the socio-economic effects which are profitability, women empowerment and employment creation, milk quality, safety and traceability issues linked to a better organised and performing dairy value chain were prioritised from 2019.
The Transforming Zimbabwe’s Dairy Value Chain for the Future (TranZDVC) project aimed to address the root causes of under-performance in the Dairy Value Chain (DVC) in Zimbabwe by strengthening the linkages between production, processing and financing.
In February 2020, TranZDVC outsourced 200 in-calf heifers from Eastern Cape in South African to help boost and improve Zimbabwe’s livestock genetics.
The first batch of 105 in-calf heifers arrived in Zimbabwe in April 2020 and the Integrators who include Dendairy, Nestle Zimbabwe and ProDairy were responsible for the distribution of the animals to selected small-scale dairy farmers through a heifer matching facility.
Dairy producers are also supported under the Command Silage Programme facilitated by the Agricultural Finance Corporation and CBZ Bank of Zimbabwe. The programme supports more than 1 500 smallholder dairy farmers with a standard input package comprising maize seed, basal fertiliser and top-dressing fertiliser for one hectare of silage.
“Silage is a highly nutritious and affordable feed option which the government is promoting under the ‘own farm feed formulation’ programme that started in 2021,” Waniwa added.
The AFC commercial bank in Zimbabwe in 2022 supported the establishment of Mafuro Safari large scale dairy farm in Marondera which has also boosted milk production in the country.
The enterprise operates on a 200-hectare farm where a composite facility of US$1 million was put together to purchase heifers for milk production, as well as working capital for the running of the dairy farm.
