Zimbabwe’s yearly milk output records 4% increase

The government of Zimbabwe through the Ministry of Agriculture’s dairy services department announced that dairy farmers produced 79,6 million litres of milk in 2021, representing a 4% increase from 76,69 million litres produced in 2020.

Despite a slow start to the year, milk production was boosted by increased availability of feed, as more maize was being delivered to the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) by farmers. This helped ease the rationing of maize between feed and domestic needs.

However, players in the dairy sector missed full year government expectations despite an improvement in milk production. The Government revised 2021 dairy milk production from 97 million litres to 92 million litres. This is against annual demand of about 120 million litres.

Constraints

While the country does not produce enough milk, the excess demand is being met through powdered milk imports mainly from neighbouring South Africa by processors under a duty-free quota system to approved importers.

Milk supply remains constrained by the high cost of stock feeds. However, government launched the command silage programme, an initiative intended to support dairy farmers grow their own silage in order to improve stock feed availability and reduce cost of milk production. This is poised to further improve milk production.

In November 2021, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube noted that Government support to the dairy sector over the years has triggered a positive response towards development of the dairy industry. This comes as investment across the value chain amounted to US$20 million.

Profit margins

The country’s monthly raw milk production picked to 7,09 million litres in August 2021, up 11 percent compared with the same period last year as dairy farmers continued to ramp up production despite the high cost of stock feed. July’s milk production came in at 6,73 million litres up from 6,52 million litres previously.

In June, milk production was up 6% to 6,58 million litres from 6,2 million litres in the same month last year. Raw milk output showed some signs of recovery in May as it rose 6,48% to 6,5 million litres from 6,11 million litres last year.

For April, milk output fell 2,57% to 5,86 million litres from 6,01 million litres in the comparative period. February output stood at 5,42 million litres, a 11% decline on last year’s corresponding period.

In March milk output suffered a 6,05% decline to 5,93 million litres from 6,32 million litres in the same month last year. January output, which usually ranked highest, was down 5% to 6,46 million litres from 6,83 million litres in the same month last year.

The Agriculture’s dairy services department figures show that milk intake by processors was up 4% to 72,66 million litres compared to 69,56 million litres in 2020. The average milk producer price is only 23% of the final consumer price of US$1,60 per litre.

Such a scenario seems to imply that vertically integrated processors get a larger share of the profit margins compared to milk producers. Retailed milk by producers stood at 6,93 million litres in 2021, down 3% from 7,12 million litres recorded in 2020.