National ASSOCIATION OF DAIRY FARMERS
OF ZIMBABWE
AGRICULTURE HOUSE, ADYLINN RD/MARLBOROUGH DRIVE MARLBOROUGH, HARARE
P.O.Box WGT 390, WESTGATE, HARARE
Telephone 309800, Fax: 309837, email: [email protected]
STABEX ’95 MARKETING SUPPORT PROGRAMME
This European Commission sponsored program, being administered by NADF is focusing on the re-establishment of seven small scale Milk Collection Centers around Zimbabwe, which for various reasons, largely the failure of the Zimbabwe dollar economy, became unviable.
The intention is to double the milk production from these Centers so that they can contribute meaningfully to the national requirement of milk, and also to improve the living standards of the communities.
On 30th October 2009, representatives from the European Commission, Ministry of Finance and NAO paid a progress and evaluation visit to one of these Milk Collection Centers at Sangano, just outside Rusape town.
Sangano had not received milk since November 2008. Since the inception of this program, they have been assisted with training, stockfeed, procurement of water (borehole) purchase of consumables such as sachets and some refurbishment and repair of the Centre equipment. On 9th October 2009, Sangano opened its doors to receive milk again and by the end of October has processed, packaged and sold 6 029 litres of milk. They still have viability challenges, such as power outages and transport for milk marketing, but these are being addressed.
In conjunction with Aglabs, we are also conducting two plot trials of maize silage and the European Commission delegation was shown these plots and the demonstrations explained and discussed.
While Sangano still has a way to go before becoming sustainably self-sufficient, great progress has been made and we look forward to seeing this Milk Collection Centre becoming a meaningful contributor to the national milk requirement.
R J VAN VUUREN
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF DIARY FARMERS