Since December 2019 when Kenya authorities ceased at least 3000 bags of powdered milk and packets of Lato milk on claims that Uganda had smuggled the products into the country without paying taxes, the impasse has since seen the milk trade between the countries souring.
Uganda has
secured a new market for its milk in Zambia following a long unresolved impasse
with Kenya which was the largest market for Uganda’s milk export.
Since
December 2019 when Kenya authorities ceased at least 3000 bags of powdered milk
and packets of Lato milk on claims that Uganda had smuggled the products into
the country without paying taxes, the impasse has since seen the milk trade
between the countries souring.
The closure
of the market saw the prices of milk at the farm gate go as low as between 250
and 700 shillings which farmers said was the most challenging time.
Despite all
interventions to solve the impasse between Uganda and Kenya over the Uganda Milk market it has remained closed.
Frank
Tumwebaze, the Minister of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries while
unveiling the new market to Pearl Diaries, one of the largest Milk Processors in
Mbarara challenged other countries to first test the quality of Ugandan milk
before closing off their markets.
He said that government is going to regulate the value chain of its products but people deny us market on allegations of poor quality.
Tumwebaze
said that the unnecessary trade wars in the region without evidence are a
barrier to quality products noting that whoever is doubting Uganda’s milk
should come and test it. He said that Uganda follows international standards noting that the standards here
are not unique to the ones being certified by the International ISO
certificate.
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Tumwebaze
cautioned farmers on the quality of milk if both the market and the milk prices
are to be maintained.
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Gen. David
Kasura Kyomukama, the Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Agriculture said that
the Ministry of Agriculture is focusing on production and productivity as an
issue of post-harvest handling and value addition and an issue of marketing
noting that all these are linked together because without market people are
producing for nothing and the price will go down.
He said that
the world is very keen on food safety and quality standards and without the two
markets will not be available.
Samson
Akankiiza Mpira, the Acting executive director of Dairy Development Authority
says the authority is faced with the challenge of farms without the cold chain
infrastructure to check the quality of milk and others that evacuate milk in
the evening without checking.
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Yosia
Bagabo, a cattle farmer and chairperson Kabura Cooperative diary agreed that
the quality of milk is not yet good but blamed it on farmers who sell
outside diaries and other cooperatives.
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Bijoy
Varghese, the General Manager Pearl diaries the first to supply milk products to
the new market said the factory consumes 800,000 litres of milk daily collected
from 100,00 farmers from the Ankole Cattle corridor.
According to
Statistics from the Dairy Development Authority, Milk production in the country
has increased from 2.5 billion litres in 2018 to 2.8 billion litres in 2020 and
also the dairy exports have increased to over 341 Billion shillings in the last
four years.
