TAKING THE DAIRY INDUSTRY FORWARD
TAKING
THE DAIRY INDUSTRY FORWARD
Despite of the increased demand for improved dairy crosses, there are
currently no commercial cattle breeders in the country, making access to breed
stock expensive and beyond the reach of smallholder farmers.
The limited genetic potential of local cattle breeds currently being
milked is a major factor accounting for low milk productivity and viability of
smallholder dairy farming. Productivity within Zambian traditional dairy sector
is at 2 litres per cow per day.
However, there are some emergent farmers who also keep cross breeds
produce between 12 and 15 litres, while commercial producers who use pure
breeds are at between 17 and 24 litres per animal per day. It is therefore
important to enable the small scale farmers to have access to improved dairy
animal breeds.
Although pure breeds have a higher yield than traditional and cross
breeds, a compromise for smallholder farmers is to have cross reeds between
pure breeds and traditional breeds which are more conducive to the climatic
situation of Zambia, relatively manageable, relatively resistant to diseases
and have a higher yield than the traditional breeds.
The dairy industry is faced with high cost of production which is partly
due to the fact that the price at which processors have been buying raw milk
has not been changed much over the years to cover the increases in the cost of
production hence it is important that for all the key stakeholders and the
government to come together and find joint solutions.
BY SOLIDARIDAD ZAMBIA
Good move, am a vet and am ready to support this in any province. We need to support the small scale farmers to improve there dairy business
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