Chronicle Editor
Dumisani Nsingo, Senior Farming Reporter
THE Government has allocated land to one of the country’s most successful communal rural women farmer pioneer organisations, Umzingwane Dairy Co-operative Society Limited in Matabeleland South to enable it to improve milk production.
Society chair Mrs Sheilla Lupuwana said the Government has allocated the co-operative 10 hectares in Umzingwane District to enable it to collectively rear its dairy herd.
“We were recently allocated 10 hectares of land and we are only waiting for the Minister of Women, Community, Small and Medium Enterprise Development Dr Sithembiso Nyoni to officially hand it over to us as she was instrumental in ensuring that we acquire it and also promised to purchase fencing material for us.
“The land we have been allocated will enable us to keep our dairy herd together and milk our cows in one place.
We also intend to employ an expert in dairy to enable us to enhance production. Initially we were looking at getting about five hectares but after consultations we were advised to get much bigger for the purposes of setting up a fodder bank,” she said.
The co-operative was formed in 2001 and consisted of 60 members.
At its inception it was known as Umzingwane Dairy Association but in 2017 members decided to register the organisation as a co-operative as it moved to comply with the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) regulations and to enable it to trade with bigger retailers.
To date, the co-operative has 35 members and only 15 are active while others have opted out over the years.
“We are very grateful of the political will being exhibited by the local leadership, which has gone to the extent of promising to ensure that the project becomes one of the biggest agricultural enterprises in the province and to that effect we have been promised to be one of the beneficiaries of the Devolution Fund, which will see a number of dairy heifers being bought to increase our herd as well as drilling of boreholes,” said Mrs Lupuwana.
The co-operative’s milk processing plant, Umzingwane Milk Centre, situated at Mawabeni Business Centre is being hampered by lack of a refrigerated storing facility and its members have been using handy tanks to deliver their milk at the processing plant instead of a refrigerated vehicle.
“We are in the process of applying for a Dairy Matching Grant Facility, which is funded by the European Union as we seek to further grow our dairy business.
As it is our milk centre doesn’t have proper storing facilities and we also don’t have a refrigerated vehicle to ferry our milk to the processing facility,” said Mrs Lupuwana.
The Matching Grant Facility (MGF) was established within the framework of the EU funded Zimbabwe Agricultural Growth Programme-Transforming the Zimbabwe Dairy Value Chain (DVC) for the future Action (2019-2022).
The Action, which includes the MGF, is managed by We Effect and its partners, Zimbabwe Association of Dairy Farmers, Zimbabwe Farmers Union, Zimbabwe Dairy Industry Trust.
The purpose is to support investments that enable increased milk production and milk sales, participation by small-scale farmers in the dairy value chain, greening of manufacturing and production processes, decent job creation and local production of affordable feed.
At its peak, the co-operative, used to produce about 5 000 litres a month producing pasteurised milk, yoghurt, ice cream and dairy juices.
However, a myriad of challenges over the years saw its milk production dropping to around 500 litres with its milk processing plant even being forced to shut down for two years after Zesa cut off power supplies in 2012 after failure by the co-operative to settle a $1 700 bill.
“Our wish is to see us producing a wide range of milk products such as ice cream, yoghurts and cheese.
We endeavor seeing the rural child also having an opportunity to eat ice-cream just like his peers in urban areas,” said Mrs Lupuwana.
@DNsingo
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