Agri-Business
Monday, May 12, 2014
Dairy gives milk as earnings hit $20m
KAMPALA, Uganda - The Dairy Development Authority (DDA) last week gave out 450 milk cans in a bid to improve the quality of milk storage and transportation.
It comes weeks after the minister for animal industry Bright Rwamirama had announced the government’s intended plan of banning milk hawking and vending.
The milk cans were worth Ush89million. “We’re giving these cans (100 of 50 litre capacity and 350 of 20 litre capacity) such that you can improve on the storage of your milk. These are stainless quality cans,” said Ms. Jolly Zaribwende the Executive Director of DDA during the handing over of the cans to milk farmers from across the country.
She said the trend will continue until Uganda’s milk reaches the required standards.
Bright Rwamirama, Uganda’s Animal Husbandry Minister said the government has been investing in the installation of milk collection centres, an effort aimed at ensuring that whatever milk is produced by farmers reaches the market whole some to avoid post-harvest losses.
“You may recall that on 4th April while commissioning our modern dairy Laboratory in Lugogo, I did inform the nation that government shall do everything possible to ensure that the quality of our milk and other dairy products is not compromised.
“We have a duty to ensure that the sector is regulated for quality assurance, fair play and market access through value addition,” said Rwamirama.
He said the government intervened by providing recommended milk handling utensils-aluminium/stainless steel to ease the handling of milk.
Currently, Uganda has 437 approved rural milk collection centres collecting about 1.5 million litres of milk per day.
Uganda’s milk production capacity as of 2013 is 1.86bn litres. This is expected to grow by 20% in 2015 according to Rwamirama.
Rwamirama said the national milk processing capacity has grown from 150,000 litres to 1.2m litres per day. It is expected to reach 1.6m litres in June 2014.
“Our export earnings from Dairy products stood at $20m in 2013 and the figure for 2014 is expected to be bigger. Processing plants have grown from 5-45 plants and new investments are expected next year,” stressed Rwamirama.
Rwamirama said Uganda has moved from 8 milk road tankers to about 164 milk road tankers. It has about 900 milk coolers throughout the country.
By Paul Tentena, Monday, May 12th, 2014