The Dairy Situation in Zimbabwe
Current situation
Zimbabwe’s dairy industry received an infusion of US$5 million in the first half of the year. Among the investments, Dendairy company put US$3 million with a goal to produce around 50% of the national milk. It would equal 82 million liters. Moreover, Dairibord invested US$1.1 million in plant upgrade.
It was revealed in governmental report on the state of the industry during the lockdown period, that despite those boosts, the overall capacity utilisation declined between March and July to 33 percent. Yet such a decline do not refer to all the commodities, it is reported that some specific milk products such as liquid milk, capacity utilisation is high at approximately 60 percent and is getting better,” reads the report by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.
New strategy
In response to the rapidly changing situation, the government of Zimbabwe has prepared the Agriculture and Food Systems Transformation Strategy. The strategy will be sustained by growing the economy, supporting local food production, and in further perspective ensuring that rural families will have their quality of life improved. Such a statement is significant as smallholder dairy farmers’ contribution has remained minimal, at 2% measured as a contribution to the national milk pool, while vast of the domestic market is operated by bigger manufacturers. Such reliance can be noticed from the drop of registered dairy farmers between 2000 and 2012, when the number dropped from 314 to 165.
