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Animal husbandry state minister Bright Rwamirama has called for an increase in domestic consumption of milk.

While presenting his ministerial statement on the Dairy Development Authority (DDA) annual report at the Uganda Media Centre in Kampala on January 11, 2024, Rwamirama emphasized the need for the country to increase domestic consumption of milk, especially among schoolchildren.

He mentioned that the milk burden in the country has increased due to the limitation of dairy products by Kenya, which was Uganda’s biggest milk export market.

“The limitation by Kenya has had a notable impact on our farmers as well as loss of jobs by our processors who lost a large proportion of their market,” Rwamirama explained the challenges that the dairy development authority has faced in the financial year 2022/2023.

He, however, noted that this has been a lesson to learn as a country that produces more milk than it consumes and also highlighted that Uganda is still below the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendation of 200 litres per capita.

According to DDA, Uganda's milk consumption per capita (the average amount of milk consumed by an individual over a specific period per person per year) stands at 62 litres.

Rwamirama, therefore, said milk powder processing will now be a stronger option that DDA will explore as newly identified markets redeem the sector.

“We are now encouraging milk powder processing for long shelf life and distant market access. In the meantime, our new markets of Algeria and Senegal will be our fruit,” he added.

Counterfeit drugs, acaricides

In the same report, Rwamirama also revealed that the issue of counterfeit drugs and acaricides has had a big impact on the dairy sector saying farmers have to incur a lot of costs to treat tick-borne diseases with ineffective drugs.

“It means their incomes are being affected. The Government of Uganda, effective October 27, 2022, rolled out anti-tick vaccines developed by the National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO) for the final trial stage. Upon the successful conclusion of the trial, the anti-tick vaccine will be available and ready for scaling up for use by livestock farmers,” he explained.

According to Rwamirama, the vaccine will be applied twice every six months, while the injectable vaccine has given promising results against brown, blue, and red ticks.

Background

In October 2023, Samson Akankiza Mpiira, the acting executive director of DDA explained the causes of the low milk intake in the country.

He attributed the low milk consumption to the population that cannot afford milk which, according to him, is a result of the packaging and distribution of safe milk.

“We also look at the distribution from the areas of plenty to areas of scarcity because most of it comes from the western part of the country. Then other areas contribute. So, we need to improve on the distribution network to ensure that where there is excess production, it can be distributed safely to areas of scarcity,” Akankiza remarked.

Akankiza said low milk intake has led to the consumption of other costly beverages, citing schoolchildren who pack synthetic juices instead of milk.

He encouraged the general public to consume at least one cup of milk per day to boost both nutrition and consumption levels.