TANZANIA Dairy Board (TDB) has said there is huge potential for farmers to increase milk production, productivity and quality through use of dairy cooperatives.
The TDB Acting Registrar, Mr Jeremiah Temu, told the 'Daily News' in Dar es Salaam yesterday that cooperatives are conceived as the main vehicle for implementing dairy development programmes.
"Apart from increase in milk output, productivity and quality, dairy cooperatives are platforms for farmers to access sources of finance from various lending institutions," he said and encouraged farmers to form cooperatives in order to tap the opportunities.
He said there are some financiers willing to provide matching grants which are important for increasing investment in dairy sector and in particular the establishment of small scale processing milk industries.
Currently, there are 76 milk industries ranging from 500 litres to over 120,000 litres processing capacity per day.
The increased investment in milk processing facilities is creating huge demand for milk production and investment in high milk yielding heifers.
One of the success stories of dairy cooperatives is the Tanga Dairy Cooperative Union (TDCU) that has contributed to increased milk output, processing and marketing of milk from smallholder farmers and pastoralists.
TDCU holds 35 per cent of shares in the milk processing and marketing facility at Tanga Fresh while the Netherland's DOB Foundation holds 45 per cent of shares.
Other cooperatives that are showing future prospects are NJONIFA-Milk Producers Cooperatives from Njombe Region and Maziwa Cooperative Union from Rungwe in Mbeya Region.
Mr Temu said the huge demand for milk could be met by forming more farmers' cooperatives that can allow farmers to access sources of finance from lending institutions to increase investment.
Statistics show that milk production increased to over 2.4 billion litres in 2017/18 compared to 2.1 billion litres in the preceding year, falling slightly below annual market demand of 2.6 billion litres.
"Various efforts to support the sector have contributed to increased milk production though still below the market demand," he said, adding that the challenge of post-harvest losses is due to lack of collection centres in milk producing areas.
It is through dairy cooperatives that farmers may easily organise and establish milk collection centres to address the post-harvest losses which have continually plunging farmers into huge losses.
Similarly, during dry season, milk production tends to drop due to absence of sufficient pastures to feed the animals.
He said livestock sector is contributing 4.6 per cent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with 30 per cent being contributed by the milk subsector.
Most of the milk produced in the country comes from the traditional sector particularly the indigenous cattle, about 70 per cent kept in rural areas and the remaining come from improved cattle mainly kept by smallholder producers.
The increase in milk production from both indigenous and improved dairy cattle is due to increase in herd size rather than in productivity per head, the milking cow.
Also, milk drinking in the country is still very low at an average of 20 per cent or 46 litres annually compared to an average of 200 litres recommended.
He said the Livestock and Fisheries Development Ministry in collaboration with stakeholders' plans to produce one million heifers annually to ensure milk production increases to boost keepers' incomes.
