Milk collection centres key to stimulate production

THE government has said that it was working on a strategy to engage the private sector so as to facilitate construction and rehabilitation of infrastructures including milk collection centres so as to stimulate production and processing of the product.

Deputy-Minister for Industries and Trade Exaud Kigahe made the statement in the House yesterday during the questions and answers question.

According to him, the strategic plan will among others focus on reaching smallholder producers of milk in rural and urban areas with education and farming support so as to increase productivity and boost economic growth.

He acknowledged that the dairy industry was one of the lucrative sectors which are drivers to industrialisation, food and nutrition security and incomes in the country, so investing in systematic ways that will boost its value chain was a matter of paramount importance.

"We are working on a special strategy to engage the private sector on the construction of enough milk collection centres in both urban and rural areas so as to boost production as well as processing of the milk," the deputy-minister said when responding to a question by Zaytu Swai, (Special Seats, CCM).

In her basic question, MP Swai sought to know the government's plan to construct more milk processing factories in Arusha Region so as to stimulate production and value addition of the milk.

The Deputy-Minister said Arusha region is one of the areas with the highest milk production (Milksheds), where it produces 30,550,500 litres of milk per year.

The region has a total of 18 large and small dairy processing factories registered with the Tanzania Dairy Board (TDB).

He said a good amount of milk does not enter the formal market and fails to be processed due to the limited collection centres especially in pastoral communities and the government was working to address the challenge by constructing more collection centres.

"The estimated capacity of the mentioned processing factories is to process 43,789,200 litres per annum. However, the actual processing amount is 6,315,400 litres per year. This is a very little amount, as a large amount of milk produced ends up on streets due to lack of market and quality storage facilities, so efforts are being taken to ensure that more milk enters the formal systems," he explained.