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Elita Chikwati Agriculture Reporter
Zimbabwe today joins the rest of the world in celebrating World Milk Day, with Nestle Zimbabwe coming up with initiatives to boost milk production.
The company has come up with initiatives to promote milk production through the establishment of milk collection centres by giving cooling tanks and solar powered boreholes to address water challenges for irrigation and pastures. It is also offering silage support to reduce commercial feed requirements and knowledge transfer on good labour transfer practices and animal welfare.
Speaking at World Milk Day commemoration held at Nestle plant in Harare, the firm’s corporate communications and public affairs manager, Mrs Yamurai Zhou, said although the country was not meeting the national requirement, the company was building smallholder farmers from scratch so they could build the national dairy herd and boost milk production.
“We have several projects with smallholder farmers in different parts of the country aimed at boosting milk production,” she said.
“We started a project with farmers in Chitomborwizi and they started delivering milk to Nestle factory in March 2016 and delivered 4 835 litres.
“Currently, the network is supplying an average of 30 000 litres of milk per month.
“We support all farmers to be agri-preneurs or drive all our farming partners to the agripreneurship mindest.
“Investing into agri preneurship creates sustainability and at large scale create economic opportunities and social impact in rural communities which is part of our Nestle Vision and purpose.”
The World Milk Day is celebrated across the world on June 1 each year.
The day was established in 2001 by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN (United Nations) to help people recognize the importance of milk as a global food.
The day is celebrated to raise awareness regarding the importance of the dairy sector and the activities related to it, including how dairy supports the livelihoods of many people.
Online Reporter