Dairy industry needs $500m

Marvelous Moyo Gwanda Correspondent
THE country’s dairy industry requires a capital injection of $500 million to boost milk production and meet local demand, Zimbabwe Association of Dairy Farmers chairman Craig Follwell has said. Follwell told Business Chronicle on the sidelines of the Matabeleland South Provincial livestock symposium in Gwanda yesterday that the sector needed “huge” funding to operate at optimal levels.

At the moment the dairy industry is producing about a quarter of the country’s requirements resulting in the influx of imports from neighbouring countries such as South Africa, Zambia and Malawi to cover up the deficit.

“Our production is roughly 4,5million litres per month against a total of 20 million litres needed to feed the country,” said Follwell.
“To increase production we need at least $500 million for restocking, training farmers and to purchase new equipment. We would like to see a situation where we would have the capacity to produce the desired milk volumes.”

He said farmers were struggling as a result of antiquated machinery that was negatively impacting on milk production levels.
“We need to improve the infrastructure,” he said.

Despite challenges faced by farmers such as high stock feed prices that strained production, Follwell said there was optimism that the situation would improve and encouraged players in the dairy industry to work closely with the government to increase milk production.

“The dairy industry is picking up slowly but it is very hard work and it is difficult at this stage when there are so few dairy farmers on the ground. We are already working with small-scale farmers to find ways on how we can be able to feed the consumers,” he said.

Follwell said there was a need to increase the number of dairy farmers to reduce the level of imports.

Other than imports, the flooding of milk on the informal market is also a challenge faced by the country.
Some farmers face transport challenges to carry their produce to the processing plants resulting in the product being channelled to informal markets.

“The setting up of small milk processing plants closer to the farmers could also be ideal so that farmers take their produce to the formal market rather than to trade informally,” Follwell said.

In Matabeleland region, last year milk volumes dropped by more than 12 percent compared to 2012 due to financial constraints to buy inputs.
At its peak around 1999, milk production levels in the country topped 150 million litres annually.