Uganda targets 20 billion litres of milk annually

By Vision Reporter

President Yoweri Museveni has said he is aiming at achieving 20 billion litres of milk per year for the local, regional and international market, saying Uganda’s problem has been processing but with more investors exploiting the sector there is a lot of improvement.

The President was meeting Amos Dairy Investors led by their chairman Dewan C. Pruthi and co-chairmen Punit Pruthi and Surinder Chawla at State House Entebbe. The investors will officially open their milk plant at Akageti, in Kiruhura district which will process over two million litres of milk per year. Another new plant in Mbarara, Pearl Dairies is already producing over 200litres of processed milk per day.

“On the issue of farm improvement, am going to talk to the farmers to handle this. In past, there was no demand for milk or beef but now with the demand going up, we shall have to improve our farms. We did not have processors before but once we have these, it is easy to work backwards,” he said.

The President said the quality of the cows have to improve through artificial insemination, improved pasture and grass and quality water dams to reduce the distance of the cows walking to drink.

According to reports, in 1989 Uganda was producing over 200 million litres of milk per year for local consumption, however with commercial linkages between the countryside and townships, production grew to over 1.8bn litres a year in ten years.

The President urged them to lure more investors to process fruits and herbs in Uganda in partnership with Ugandans scientists. The President was happy to note that Uganda is a leading producer of a local herb pygeum and exports over 15 containers to France and UK in a month.

Pygeum is a herbal remedy containing extracts from the bark of Prunus africana. It is used to alleviate some of the discomfort caused by inflammation in patients suffering from benign prostatic hyperplasia (enlarged prostate).

Bark extract is marketed under the brand-names of Pigenil in Italy and Tadenan in France and used commonly in its natural forms in traditional African medicine.

The Amos Dairies Ltd is an Indian Company with Headquarters in New Delhi India. Dawan C. Pruthi the chairman of Amos Diary Ltd, hailed the Government of Uganda under the leadership of President Museveni for providing a conducive atmosphere for investment in Uganda.

He pledged his company’s commitment to developing the dairy sector and called on the farmers to focus on producing large quantities of milk to sustain production.