News / Agriculture
Milk Production increases to 74,96 Million litres
11 Jan 2023 at 09:29hrs | Views
The latest figures from the Ministry of Lands Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development's dairy services show that milk Production as of the end of the year 2022 increased by 14%.
In year 2021 Zimbabwe's milk Production rounded up to 65.80 Million litres in total which has since increased to 74.96 Million litres by end of year 2022. With such an increase, the amount of powdered milk imported has since decreased by 17% from 8.9 Million Kg in year 2021 to 7.4 Million Kg by end of last year.
Dr John Basera, Permanent Secretary of the Land, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development Ministry highlighted that the improvement is due to the government thrust to improve local dairy production forcing a decrease in importing.
He also complimented the private sector stating that a number of interventions they made helped to improve the total dairy output.
Basera said, "This is coming up as a backdrop of a number of interventions that the private sector and the Government are undertaking. The dairy heifer growth is funded from the Dairy Development Fund, this entails expanding the dairy herd from about 19 000 dairy herd to about 25 000 and of course the private sector and public sector interventions. Presidential silage programme targeted 1 500 smallholder dairy farmers with a standard input package for a one hectare silage for each household of dairy farmers so this helped in terms of improving productivity in the dairy sub-sector."
He went on to state that, "This also closed a viability gap whereby the input costs is actually going up and with silage you can reduce your feed costs significantly then it will plug the viability gap".
Zimbabwe Farmers' Union economist Ms Nyasha Taderera said the improvement made so far in the dairy sector is a positive step towards the growth of the dairy industry.
"This is a positive step towards improvement of the dairy sector. There will be reduction of import of milk powders from South Africa. This also shows that milk consumption in the country will increase and there will be more investors in the dairy industry," she said.
In year 2021 Zimbabwe's milk Production rounded up to 65.80 Million litres in total which has since increased to 74.96 Million litres by end of year 2022. With such an increase, the amount of powdered milk imported has since decreased by 17% from 8.9 Million Kg in year 2021 to 7.4 Million Kg by end of last year.
Dr John Basera, Permanent Secretary of the Land, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development Ministry highlighted that the improvement is due to the government thrust to improve local dairy production forcing a decrease in importing.
He also complimented the private sector stating that a number of interventions they made helped to improve the total dairy output.
Basera said, "This is coming up as a backdrop of a number of interventions that the private sector and the Government are undertaking. The dairy heifer growth is funded from the Dairy Development Fund, this entails expanding the dairy herd from about 19 000 dairy herd to about 25 000 and of course the private sector and public sector interventions. Presidential silage programme targeted 1 500 smallholder dairy farmers with a standard input package for a one hectare silage for each household of dairy farmers so this helped in terms of improving productivity in the dairy sub-sector."
He went on to state that, "This also closed a viability gap whereby the input costs is actually going up and with silage you can reduce your feed costs significantly then it will plug the viability gap".
Zimbabwe Farmers' Union economist Ms Nyasha Taderera said the improvement made so far in the dairy sector is a positive step towards the growth of the dairy industry.
"This is a positive step towards improvement of the dairy sector. There will be reduction of import of milk powders from South Africa. This also shows that milk consumption in the country will increase and there will be more investors in the dairy industry," she said.
Source - Byo24News
