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OPINION

By Simon Kaheru

I spent the weekend in my usual superb company, trying to stop various sturdy dining tables from collapsing under the weight of vast amounts of delicious home cooking.

By the time I was emerging from my ordinary recovery procedures on Monday morning there was a mild discombobulation tickling my forehead that I was certain was not connected to the weekend’s activities.

Sitting still for a few minutes and concentrating revealed it to be a story in one of the dailies titled, “Namutumba farmers seek govt help to process dairy products”.

Namutumba district is in eastern Uganda and even has its own website (namutumba. go.ug) which is not sufficiently up-to-date for you to help solve this dairy problem raised by Namutumba Dairy Farmers’ Co-operative Savings and Credit Society.

According to them, the 500 dairy farmers are producing over 4,000 litres of milk daily, but lack milk cans, a modern milk collection centre, and a functional milk cooler machine. The society’s secretary, Juma Igaga, explained their problems including “lack of training on how to make milk products like yoghurt...”

The industrious reporter who did the story informed us that in 2008/2009 the Government actually placed “a milk cooler machine in Nakyere village, Namutumba sub-county, which, unfortunately, remains non-functional to-date”.

Please be patient with your anger, for this tragicomedy has many elements to it that you are best advised not to approach on a Monday morning as I ill-advisedly did.

The reporter even spoke to the Dairy Development Authority (DDA) of Uganda, whose Sheila Atuhaire — identified as “an official” said the problem was not the lack of equipment, but that “most farmers add water to the milk....” and then added (pause and read the following while seated):

“The government, through the DDA, has come up with penalties which will see farmers found adding water to milk fined or imprisoned.” This is not a joke.

It was this Monday in this Uganda here, which we keep claiming has the largest amount of arable land in Africa (the Internet, confused as always, says it is actually Sudan) and that is the most entrepreneurial country in the world (again, the Internet is here mistakenly claiming that is South Africa as of 2023).

I have made yoghurt before in my own kitchen using the most rudimentary and simplistic means ever, having been told the process verbally by a lawyer friend — Perry Muhebwe. Because of that, I did not take Juma Igaga’s plea about lack of training seriously.

Having never bought a milk cooling plant before, I took some interest in sourcing one very casually and was confused by sites like alibaba.com claiming that the things were going for $15,000 or thereabouts. Be serious!

We have Land Cruisers racing about even in Namutumba, I am sure, that cost 10 times that. How can the lack of milk cooling plants and milk cans be a news story here?

Questions like those will always give you a headache. They shouldn’t; the relevant government documents and policy statements will make you believe that we have our priorities right. In the “Agro-industrialisation Programme Annual Performance Report FY 2022/23” I read the correct things about our dairy sector.

In fact, the sector itself is a priority one for Uganda, listed as one of the first key targets in the National Development Plan III (NDP III). Yet, somehow, 500 farmers in Namutumba have not only failed to use a milk cooling facility for 15 years, they are out there asking for milk cans.

Meanwhile, even if Namutumba district has a whole website, all our amazing entrepreneurs have zero visibility of the opportunity just down the road in eastern Uganda, being whined about by 500 farmers who the Dairy Development Authority is poised to penalise or imprison.

Uganda occupies a respectable slot on the list of global milk producers and yet with our even more highly globally celebrated entrepreneurial spirit we are here buying more land cruisers than milk cooling facilities.

Almost ironically, the Internet hosts many scientists who say dairy products can be good for the brain because they contain nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids and calcium, which are important for brain health, cognitive function and memory. Perhaps we just need to consume more dairy products ourselves?

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