ALON MWESIGWA
Richard Mwebaze,
a cattle farmer in Ibanda district liked his indigenous cows. If anyone dared
advise him to sell them, that person would be counted among his enemies.
“I loved my cows.
I just liked keeping them around,” he says.
While Mwebaze had
much love for his cows – the long horned, Kinyankore cows, they had one problem:
with about 40 cows, he would struggle to get 15 litres of milk daily.
Even then it took
him a lot of time to get convinced that he needed to adopt a new breed that is
productive and would offer him a lot of milk.
“It was after
visiting one of my farmer friends that I realised I needed to change the breed.
I sold my 40 cows and bought 12 high milk yielding cows,” Mwebaze narrates. “While
I used not sell milk because it was very little. Now, I take about 80 litres of
milk to our min-dairy in Ibanda town,” he says.
“Each litre is priced
Shs 400, meaning every day I must earn Shs 32000 amounting to Shs 960, 000 a
month.
“This is not bad
either. I can live happy life with that [income].”
Mwebaze paints a
picture how much transformation has taken place within the dairy industry in
Uganda. More and more people have adopted improved breeds that guarantee high
milk yields.
Dairy farmers and
the sector in general have transformed a lot in the last two decades – from the
indigenous cows with low milk yields to high yielding milk cows.
The study, Dairy sector reforms and transformations in
Uganda since the 1990 to 2011, done by the Economic Policy Research Centre
(EPRC), shows that livestock sector, driven mainly by the dairy industry has
maintained positive growth rates averaging at 3% per annum compared to the
declining growth rates registered in food and cash crop subsectors.
According to Isaac
Shinyekwa, a research fellow at EPRC, the growth in the sector can be
attributed to the farmers being assured of daily income as a result of selling
milk.
“People have gone
into dairy farming because they are assured of daily income. This is not the
case with when you grow beans, where you have to wait for three months to sell
after harvest,” he says.
As such, more and
more people are taking on milk producing exotic cows from the indigenous cows. The
study indicates that a number of exotic cows grew from 19% in 2006 to 25% in
2010.
“With increased
trade in milk, households undertook to improve herd productivity through the
adoption of improved dairy cattle breeds – exotic and cross breeds,” notes the
report.
Milk production
has also grown from 380 million litres in 1990 to 1.6billion litres in 2011.
The sudden increase in milk relates to a gradual and over time change in the
proportion of grade animals to local animals, according the study. Cattle
population also grew from 5million in 1990 to over 10 million in 2010.
While the Western
region remains the country’s milk hub, with output per unit farm estimated at 2600 litres per annum with
exception of Northern Uganda, dairy farms in other regions improved in terms of
average milk per annum – it’s attributed to growth in number of dairying
households adapting to improved breeds.
Jobs created
According to
Mwebaze, a dairy farmer, dairy farming is one of the areas where one must
employ at least someone to help them if they are to succeed on the farm.
“I employ about 8
people, where some work on the farm in terms of maintaining it, others in
transporting the milk among other activities related with livestock,” he says.
Indeed, the study
notes that the dairy sector has not only created employment for over 700, 000
dairy farming households, but also for
farm input dealers, dairy equipment dealers, dairy ingredients dealers, raw
milk traders, transporters, min-dairies, and large scale milk processors and
distributors.
Milk processing
While milk
production has improved, the biggest chunks of the milk still go unprocessed, although,
most of the processing companies like Sameer and others are operating under
excess capacity. Sameer’s installed capacity is 50, 000 litres a day, but they
process only 25000.
Only 20% of the
milk is processed.
Local farmers,
however, are coming together in their groups to process their milk.
“Co-operatives like Uganda Crane Creameries Cooperative Union (UCCU) in
Mbarara, process the milk of the farmers in this group. They are able to make
such products like yoghurt and cheese,” says Shinyekwa.
Even with visible
successes, a host of challenges fen the sector. Dr Swaibu Mbowa, a research
fellow at the EPRC, notes that there is still a huge gap in infrastructure like
roads and electricity to support the sector especially in the value addition development
chain.
“The government
need to promote the public private partnership and support min-dairies
facilitated by farmer groups to increase the amount of milk processed,” says
Mbowa.
Also farmers
still receive low farm gate prices for their milk, especially in Western Uganda.
For instance, Sameer buys each litre of milk at Shs 300, during peak seasons –
the factor that acts as a disincentive to most farmers.
“While some
challenges remain, we recommend that the government look into dairy farming as
one way to fight poverty; the families in dairy farming, have an income and
they are healthy because they drink the milk in addition to selling,” adds
Mbowa.
aamwesigwa@gmail.com
