Heifer International Uganda has asked dairy farmers to embrace the use of modern equipment as one of the measures to ensure good quality milk which will make their products competitive on the Ugandan market, East Africa and beyond.
Addressing journalists at the launch of the Milk Can Revolving Fund ceremony on Monday at Heifer international headquarters in Kampala, John Ssenyonga the Program Director from Heifer, noted that in order for dairy farmers to benefit from their milk products, quality assurance must be their first priority.
“It’s important to note that, during the last two years, COVID-19 market interruptions have diminished demand, increased spoilage, increased local market selling, and raised prices for inputs. These challenges are in addition to inaccessible extension and advisory services, and non-tariff barriers for dairy exports, among others. We appreciate government efforts through ADAP to strengthen mechanisms for improving the quality of milk and milk products in Uganda,” Ssenyonga said.
As a way of promoting milk quality assurance, under the initiative dubbedm ‘Revolving Fund’, Heifer International Uganda in partnership with Agricultural Business Initiative (aBi Development) handed over 500 milk cans and 29 chaff cutters to dairy farmers’ cooperatives.
According to Ssenyonga, the revolving fund is meant to enable farmers to access quality and affordable milk cans. He also noted that milk quality translates into secured markets and sustainable incomes, therefore, the milk cans will be an addition to the milk hygiene and handling pieces of training. The project has been conducted through the CAVEs.
Samson A. Ampulira, Director of technical services at Dairy Development Authority also urged heads of the cooperative to consider using the milk cans as one of the ways to promote the Milk value chain.
“As the leaders of the development of the dairy sector in the country, we want to appreciate all of you for contributing to this journey, such initiatives will enable the milk sector to reduce the sale of raw milk and it will enable more milk to go through processing.”
Ampulira said that embracing the usage of modern milk equipment such as Milk cans will help in ensuring the quality of milk and also it is one of the measures to protect consumers of the milk.
“We need to make sure that the milk sold at the market is good and safe for consumption. I thank Heifer and all other partners for the initiatives ensured to see that there is a value chain in Milk production in Uganda.”
Over 21 dairy cooperatives received milk cans, some received 10 while others received 50 cans. Each Milk can costs Shs335000, and they are supposed to sell them to their members so that they can be able to restock. The revolving fund itself is close to Shs210m.
Silver Turyahikayo- Head of Procurement and Extension Department from Jesa noted that giving dairy cooperatives Milk cans is yet another milestone towards enabling farmers to access better equipment to facilitate them in transporting and delivering milk in the recommended food-grade aluminium cans which will enhance their ability to produce and deliver good quality milk to the market.
“As a country, our total milk production capacity has increased from 2.5 billion litres in 2018 to approximately 2.82 billion litres to date. The total installed capacity in Mid-western where the ADAP project is operating is 197,800 litres of which 150,700 litres installed capacity is currently directly linked and supplying JESA Farm dairy Ltd. And further through funding from Shared Wealth Ventures (SWV) five more cooperatives are being supported and an installed capacity of 25,000 litres is going to be added onto our supply chain by end of 2022,” Turyahikayo said.
The revolving fund initiative is one of the three years (2020-2022) dairy value chain projects called, “The Accelerate Dairy Production and Productivity (ADAP)” being supported by Heifer International Uganda with support from aBi Developments Ltd and JESA Farm Dairy Ltd.
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