Zimbabwe has recorded a slight increase in milk production but still falls far short of meeting national demand.
The country needs 120 million litres of milk per year to adequately meet national demand but annual production stood at 79 million in 2021.
Zimbabwe Association of Dairy Farmers (ZADF) Matebeleland Vice Chairperson, Dorothy Mufanochiya on Tuesday revealed that milk output in the country rose from 76.7 million litres per year in 2020 to 79 million in 2021.
She was speaking during a livestock business forum in Bulawayo. Said Mufanochiya:
There has been an injection in the total herd with the European Union (EU) coming in with heifers.
The government’s dairy farming revitalisation policies have also increased some heifers.
The farmers have also received training in dairy farming.
She said ZADF faces the challenge of effectively accounting for all the milk produced in the country. She said:
There have been wider networks of bringing on all the milk to the processors because there is a lot of milk side marketing in the rural areas.
There was no accountability and we have been trying to put together all those figures so that we came up with a true picture of how much we are producing as a country.
The other challenges bedevilling the dairy sector include exorbitant prices of stock feed and drugs and recurrent power cuts. Said Mufanochiya:
As it is, there are a lot of challenges, which include power cuts because milk is a highly perishable product which should be maintained at temperatures between two and six degrees, but to maintain those temperatures you need electricity all the time.
As a result of power cuts, farmers are now forced to throw away a lot of milk because it will not pass the parameters that are expected.