Women tipped on dairy value addition

The Executive Director of Dairy Development Authority (DDA), Mr Samson Akankiza Mpiira, has said there is a need for women in the milk processing sector to increase the value of milk products to compete fairly in both domestic and foreign markets.

“Our move as Dairy Development Authority and the government is to have milk cottages developed to ensure that we utilise the evening milk because in some places where the volumes are not substantial, they don’t take milk to the nearest collection centres due to the distances. If the value addition is done at household and small scale, then the evening milk can be utilised and this reduces losses,” he said.

Mr Akankiza made the remarks at the graduation ceremony of 30 participants who were awarded certificates in upskilling and short-term incubation of dairy women entrepreneurs in yoghurt processing and business skills at the Entebbe Dairy Training School (EDTS) last Friday.

“We want to promote domestic consumption and one of the challenges of that is limited diversification of dairy products. The current consumption is largely the raw milk and sometimes we want to have value-added products to be consumed by the producers themselves. So these small processors will be able to sell products in their locations in different forms and increase domestic consumption,” he said.

Mr Akankiza said the farm gate prices will be stabilised once there is processing at the nearest point of production.

“The current domestic consumption is still very low, we have per capita consumption at 64 litres per person per year yet what is recommended is 200 litres. This big gap is still a big market for small processors who have quality products and can satisfy the domestic market. As they grow the domestic market, they grow their capacity to process exported products and participate at regional and international level,” he said.

The school’s principal tutor, Mr Herbert Sabila, said there is a need to prioritise value addition to cope with the trend of milk production. 

“We believe that value addition is the way to go because it extends milk’s shelf life. Secondly, the market is improved. When it stays on the shelf, we can now do the marketing of it and get more value for money,” he said.

Mr Sabila added that the women were given start-up milk testing kits to check the quality of milk that will be used for processing the products.

The Generating Growth Opportunities and Productivity for Women Enterprises (GROW) Project Coordinator, Ms Pamela Ejang, said the skilling of women from 20 districts across the country is supposed to help women transition from small businesses to big enterprises.

“We have signed memoranda of understanding with the Uganda National Bureau of Standards, Uganda Investment Authority, and Export Promotions Board to have our products certified. There may be just one or two of us here who have certified products but the majority of us are still cottages. We want to move these products to supermarkets and export them to other countries,” she said. 

Uganda currently has 193 milk tankers for large storage, 869 coolers that regulate  temperature for optimal milk quality,  12 hubs for collection that ensure quality assessment and initial processing, and more than 700 bulk centres to optimise transport for milk processing facilities, according to Dairy Development Authority. The goal of the Authority is to enhance dairy value addition and quality for increased market competitiveness

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