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Zambia projects milk output at 60 million litres by 2015

Zambia projects milk output at 60 million litres by 2015
By Gift Chanda
Thu 17 May 2012, 08:50 CAT

ZAMBIA is targeting to increase annual milk output to 60 million litres by 2015, an industry official said yesterday. Jeremiah Kasalo, who is the Dairy Association of Zambia (DAZ) executive director, said the country's annual milk output to the formal market currently stands at 44 million litres.

Kasalo said anticipated population increases and improved people's incomes both locally and globally is expected to push up demand and that would require countries to step up their production levels.

"The focus of the industry in the medium term would be to improve production and productivity of milk. We want to increase the number of small-holder farmers' involvement in the sector," Kasalo said in an interview. "By 2015 we want the number of small-scale farmers to increase to 5,000.

Currently, we have about 3, 000 smale-scale farmers directly supplying milk to the formal market but we want this number to increase to 5, 000. We also want to see that milk that is going to the formal market, because current it is about 44 million litres per year, increases to somewhere around 60 million litres."

He said to achieve the projected targets, it meant that farmers ought to have a source of good breeding stock at an affordable price.

"This means that government needs to step up the establishment of these breeding centres which will be able to produce good heifers which farmers can buy affordably," Kasalo said. "It will also be good for the government to look beyond maize production. A lot has been put towards maize production, it is time we looked at other agricultural areas.

If a similar arrangement like the maize subsidy under FISP can be undertaken for the livestock sector where farmers can access some subsidised drugs for their animals and feed for a period of time, we are not saying forever, that would boost the livestock sector and particularly milk production in the country."

He explained that as African countries move to open their markets, it is important that Zambia positions itself by becoming competitive.

Kasalo said this meant the country needed to quickly address constraints that normally push up production costs for farmers.

One of the impediments he said was access to cheap financing.

He said despite the government through the Central Bank trying to ease the interest rates by coming up with a benchmark rate for commercial banks to follow, the cost of borrowing in the country has remained high.

"We would want a reduced interest rate for the agriculture sector especially," he said. "The banks should respond to the policy rate by the Bank of Zambia."

And Kasalo urged the government to step up the monitoring of border posts to ensure that there is no illegal export of maize and wheat bran following the ban.

He said in the past, a ban would be imposed but the exports continued because of inadequate monitoring at the country's borders.

Kasalo said the move to ban the exports of bran was commendable but urged millers and feedstock traders to react to the move by lowering the prices of feedstock.

He said the two commodities that were banned from being exported are expected to flood the market, and that it would be ironic for the dealers not to obey the economic rules of supply and demand.

Kasalo also urged the millers to form partnerships with key players in the livestock sector in a bid to establish the actual feedstock requirements for the livestock sector.

"As an association what we would love is the best price for our farmers at the same time making the millers stay in business," said Kasalo.

"We don't want to command a price which will again make these millers fail to operate. We want a win-win situation. But definitely we want the prices to ease."

Labels: CATTLE, DAIRY

posted by MrK @ 6:01 PM