The Dairy Development Authority have released their annual report for the financial year 2022/2023. The report was unveiled to members of the press yesterday at Uganda media centre by the state minister for agriculture, animal industry and Fisheries Lt Col. Dr. Rwamirama Bright Kanyontore.
According to the report the dairy sector has continued to grow, where production has currently increased by 37% from 2.81 billion litres in F/Y 2020-2021 to 3.85 billion litres in the F/Y 2022-2023 despite the reported drought in some of the selected areas across the country.
“the export value of milk and milk products increased from USD. 102.6 million in 2021-2022 to USD. 264.5 million in 2022-2023.” The state minister revealed
It’s upon this background that Minister Rwamirama urged the rest of the farmers to fully participate in the sector since it’s very productive.
“These are tremendous developments that should be appreciated. For the livestock sector to thrive, farmers need to take on livestock farming as a business and keep high yielding breeds.
He also said, the government of Uganda through the Dairy Development Authority and other dairy sector players, has contributed greatly towards increasing production, value addition and export in the sector.
“we remain committed to supporting this key sector because it serves a core purpose of improving the nutrition of citizens as well as incomes at household and national levels.” Said Rwamirama
In addition, he noted other initiatives government is putting emphasis on in order to add value to the sector for example through NAGRC & DB, where they are focusing on improving the quality and availability of high yielding dairy breeds.
“This is being piloted through community breeding as well as bringing Artificial insemination services closer to the farmers.” Rwamirama stated
He added that dairy farming to be more profitable, there is need to improve productivity per cow, animal nutrition and health.
He however expressed concerns over the challenges hindering the success of the dairy sector with the most recent being that from our regional neighbours Kenya.
“inspite of this, the sector still continues to face a number of challenges and most especially in the previous year, the intermittent closures and limitation of dairy imports by Kenya which has been our biggest export market for dairy products.” He said
He stressed that although the issue heavily affected their income as a country, it also served as a lesson to our country which produces more milk compared to our actual consumption which statistically falls far below the world health organisation’s recommendation of 200 litres of milk per capita.
He therefore implored the country to explore ways of increasing the domestic consumption especially amongst the school going children as has been practiced in other countries for a long time.
“We are now encouraging milk powder processing for long shelf life and market access.” Said Rwamirama
Today the dairy industry is a significant contributor to Uganda’s economy, with the sector providing livelihoods for millions of people and contributing to food security and Nutrition.
The sector contributes 6.5% of the country’s Agricultural gross domestic product (GDP).
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