The Dairy Association of Zambia-DAZ has revealed that about 525 million litres of milk does not go through the formal market due to lack of infrastructure.
Association Public Relations Manager Christopher Chipemba said according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Zambia is currently producing around 600 million litres of milk annually but only 75 million litres goes through the formal market.
Speaking in an interview with the Zambian Business Times-ZBT, Chipemba said there is need for more infrastructure like Milk Collection Centres (MCCs) and good roads in order to ensure that most of the milk that is produced goes through the formal market.
Chipemba mentioned that currently, there are 74 milk collection centres affiliated to the Dairy Association of Zambia.
He noted that raw milk prices are currently between K8-K10 per litre depending on the distance between the farmer and the processor as the processor has to cover the transportation cost adding that K10 is a good price because the price was at k4 for a long time.
DAZ Executive Manager Jeremiah Kasalo had earlier told the ZBT that most of the dairy milk does not reach the formal trading channels such as Zambeef’s Zam-milk, Lactalis’ Parmalat and Trade Kings Diary Gold among others.
Kasalo said milk is a perishable commodity, which requires special equipment to store, handle and market. It is this equipment in the form of chillers, which are inadequate in the country, and especially milk producing and collection centers.
He said the milk reaching formal trading channels or milk processors is only about 12%, as most of the milk is not collected due to an underdeveloped milk collection dealer network and in-installed milk collection centre equipment.
There is need of an additional 200 milk collection centers that each would need to have a storage capacity of 2500 litres per day to be able to mop up the milk which is locally available. Kasalo told ZBT.
