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Edgar Vhera
Agriculture Specialist Writer
ZIMBABWE today joins the rest of the world in celebrating World Milk Day.
This comes as the sector has recorded a remarkable 51 percent surge in raw milk production, thanks to Government’s progressive policies backed by private sector initiatives.
The theme for this year’s celebrations is: “Celebrating the vital role dairy plays in delivering quality nutrition to nourish the world”.
World Milk Day was established by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the UN (United Nations) to ensure people recognise the importance of milk as a global food and the dairy sector’s profound impact on society.
The day has been celebrated since 2001.
Meanwhile, the local dairy industry has in the last six years been recording substantial production increases from 66 million litres in 2017 to an impressive 100 million litres last year.
Government’s positive economic policies allowed the country to score a 17-year all time high from 90 million litres recorded in 2006, courtesy of its collaborative efforts with private sector and development partners.
Statistics availed by Zimbabwe Association of Dairy Farmers (ZADF) show that raw milk production rose by 51 percent from 66 million litres in 2017 to 99, 82 million in 2023. The milk in cow population also grew by over 61 percent from 17 968 to over 29 000 during the same period with census results for 2023 still to be released.
The dairy sector continues to grow with milk production in the first quarter of this year rising 21 percent to 27 301 904 litres from 22 612 919 litres in the comparable period last year.
Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development Minister, Dr Anxious Masuka, said the livestock sector contributed significantly to household and national food and nutrition security, foreign currency earnings and was a source of livelihoods for about 67 percent of the country’s rural households.
“The dairy value chain is a high employment generator providing direct employment to approximately 30 000 people and indirectly to 1,3 million households.
“For this reason, Government has been very keen to support the sector and continues to allocate resources and other forms of support to foster its growth,” he said while addressing delegates at the eighth ZADF annual general meeting in Harare recently.
The Second Republic initiated the Command Livestock Programme, which was launched by President Mnangagwa in Gwanda in 2018 after the distribution of 200 heifers at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) that was held in April the same year.
Emphasising the new thrust of Government-facilitation and private sector involvement at the launch, the President said: “We are not financing this programme from the fiscus, but we got the money from the private sector, which has renewed confidence in us while we develop our agriculture sector.
“Those who benefited will have to repay after five years and we are confident that by then we would have empowered a lot of our people, as we seek to build our national economy.”
Other projects that led to resurgence of the dairy sector are the Presidential Sileage Programme (PSP), Presidential Input Scheme (PIS), Foot and Mouth and January disease control.
The Livestock Recovery and Growth Plan (LRGP) and fiscal policies were launch pads for the growth.
To revitalise the industry, Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion Minister, Professor Mthuli Ncube introduced a five percent levy on the value of imported dairy products to recapitalise the Dairy Revitalisation Fund (DRF) in the 2022 Budget.
Online Reporter