The drive to increase milk production to meet national demand of more than 150 million litres is on track, with Manicaland province recording a 27 percent increase after the introduction of the presidential silage programme in 2022.
Efforts to increase national milk production are yielding positive results, with small-scale farmers playing an active role.
Cynara Dairy Farmers Cooperative in Mutasa South is one of the success stories under the Second Republic’s inclusive development agenda.
“We started our operations in 2017 and our production was 4 600 litres and in 2024 we increased our production to 67 000 litres.
“We are looking forward to reach 300 000 litres by end of this year as we have increased our herd,” said chairperson of Cynara Dairy Farmers Cooperative, Francis Musunzuru.
Small-scale dairy farmers in the area have benefited from government support, which has given impetus to their milk production ventures.
“We have partners selling affordable dairy calves to us at $100 each. We were also given an artificial insemination kit to grow our herd,” said a dairy farmer.
“The presidential silage scheme is helping us a lot in improving the volume of milk we produce due to increased supply of feeds,” said a dairy farmer.
“We are looking forward to growing our herd as we are being supported by the government,” said another dairy farmer.
“We are happy with the support but we can produce more if our herd is increased. We are planning to produce feeds locally to reduce production costs,” said a dairy farmer.
Government support has been the major driver of growth in the dairy sector.
“Since the introduction of the presidential silage scheme, Manicaland province recorded 27 percent growth in terms of milk production.
“We want to thank the government and President Mnangagwa for supporting farmers to increase productivity,” Mutare regional chairperson of Zimbabwe Association of Dairy Farmers, Rudo Sithole said.
“2025 has being declared as the year of international cooperatives by the United Nations as cooperatives are important in nation building.
“We don’t have a lot of cooperatives that are into milk production. Government expects to have 60 000 dairy cows by 2025 this can be achieved if our cooperative gets into their factor in their numbers.
“Government has done a lot of training and is providing feeds under the presidential silage scheme. We are saying to our cooperatives this is an opportunity for them as government is supporting milk production,” said a representative of Zimbabwe National Cooperative Federation Mike Duru.
Since 2009, annual milk production has increased from 37 million litres to 77 million in 2020 before going up to 79.6 million litres in 2021.
The figure rose to 91.6 million litres in 2022 and reached 99.8 million litres in 2023, while projections are that national production surpassed 100 million litres by December last year.
ZBC
