ADDIS ABABA: – Efforts are underway to increase the productivity, commercialization and quality of milk by small holders through introducing modern systems and diversifying dairy collection station centers across the country, Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resource said.
Tariku Teka, Dairy Directorate Director with the Ministry told The Ethiopian Herald that Ethiopia’s potential of producing milk can exceed the local demand, but the country is still importing milk with high amount of foreign currency to fill the deficit in the local market.
According to the director the ministry is working aggressively to transform the sector’s productivity to meet the local demand, mainly it gives attention to commercialize the smallholder farmers’ productivity by building their capacity and introducing new mechanisms.
Tariku said that milk, unlike other products cannot be sold in an open market due to its perishable nature. He added that collecting milk is not difficult but availing the required facilities for its commercialization was a challenge.
The government in collaboration with development partners has started to transform the sector to increase the productivity and quality as part of the efforts to commercialize small holder farmers milk production.
It is building and expanding dairy collection centers across the country mainly in areas with big potential, Tariku restated. Accordingly the Ministry is speeding up construction of 88 dairy collection centers across the country with full facility, to improve the safe handling of the product and supply to the market.
The centers would serve to preserve the milk collected from smallholder farmers so that it could be delivered to the target market on good condition, the director said. Cooperatives, unions and other local enterprises would be in charge of running the collection centers and are likely to mitigate the impact of brokers on the price and quality of the product, Tariku stated.
So far small holder farmers do not supply adequate amount of milk to the market and do not care to increase their productivity due to absence of market and other mechanism to sell their products. But the new mechanism established to encourage the farmers’ to increase their productivity and to provide their product to the market is expected to encourage small holders to produce beyond their family demand and household consumption, Tariku said.
According to Tariku four agro-industrial parks are under construction in Oromia, Amhara, Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples and Tigray regional states which need inputs, milk is one among the major inputs which the agro-industrial parks need.
The agro-industrial parks are planned to buy milk from farmers within 100 kilometers radius, for that purpose, mobilization, awareness and trainings started both for experts and farmers, he added. Preparation of value chain analysis and business plan is also underway to provide sustainable supply and timely delivery with competitive price for the agro-industrial parks, Tariku stated.
According to the director in addition to the efforts taken by government to increase the productivity, private investors on sector are also increasing their capacity.
To increase the quality of milk product tolerable standard range is drafted by Ethiopian standard Agency while Dairy product proclamation is on a draft level to regulate the market, which is handled on voluntary basis due to absence of law and regulations, Tariku added.
He added that the standard is set to conform to both the situation of the country as well as internationally standards.
Tariku added that the country produced 4.75 million litters milk in 9 months of this fiscal year and by properly use the potential of the country, in 2028 there is a plan to export 20 million litters milk by fulfilling the maximum local demand.