Introduction
Background
Parastatal processing
Traditional processing methods and their potential for improvements and commercialisation
Sanitary and hygienic related issues in milk marketing.
Conclusion
E.C. Kumwembe
Production manager
Malawi Dairy Industries
Lilongwe - MALAWI
Abstract
A rapid growth in demand for milk and milk products has presented a great potential for the development of the dairy sector and hance increased the need for processing to carter for the ever growing urban and suburban populations requirements. With such a growing demand for dairy products, Africa is presented with a challenge and an opportunity for developing the diary sector. In this regard therefore, there is a great need to develop the dairy sector both in the urban and rural areas. To promote a general economic development more emphasis should be put on enhancing rural dairy development with an objective to improve food security and to achieve sustainable agricultural development.
In most African countries, dairying is proving to be the only profitable agricultural business as world prices for cash crops are declining very fast.
Smallholder dairy fanning is therefore rapidly becoming an important income generating opportunity for rural households due to the unmet and ever growing demand for milk and dairy products, mainly around population centres.
This paper therefore outlines in broad context the milk processing requirements for satisfying this ever growing demand with particular emphasis on traditional processing methods and their potential for improvements, rural dairies adoption of technology for milk processing in respect of market demand and the willingness to buy.
A reduction in imports of dairy products due to reduced surpluses and financial constraints in Western Europe and the United States of America, has forced many African countries to have a growing interest in local milk production and processing to satisfy the ever growing demand for these commodities.
Although African countries have had this growing interest in milk production and processing, their plants have still depended on imported commodities for recombination and reconstitution. For example one of Malawi's dairy processing plants to this date depends on milk powder imports to satisfy 75 (seventy five) percent of its demand.
This clearly indicates that there is a ready market for milk and milk products which can come from the local producers milk.
DEMAND AND SUPPLY OF MILK AND MILK PRODUCTS IN MALAWI 1991/92 (X104 KG)
|
|
DEMAND |
SUPPLY |
STATUS |
|
FLUID MILK |
1184 |
1057 |
-127 |
|
FERMENTED MILK |
180 |
122 |
-58 |
|
FRESH CREAM |
4 |
2 |
-2 |
|
ICE CREAM |
10 |
8 |
-2 |
|
CHEESE |
12 |
7 |
-5 |
|
BUTTER |
16 |
10 |
-6 |
DEMAND AND SUPPLY OF MILK AND MILK PRODUCTS (x104 kg) 1993/94
|
|
DEMAND |
SUPPLY |
STATUS |
|
FLUID MILK |
1320 |
1180 |
-140 |
|
FERMENTED MILK |
298 |
204 |
-94 |
|
FRESH CREAM |
8.4 |
3.1 |
-5.3 |
|
ICE CREAM |
17.2 |
9.2 |
-8.0 |
|
CHEESE |
15.0 |
7 |
-7.9 |
|
BUTTER |
20.1 |
7.9 |
-12.2 |
Commercial processing has been done in most African countries. This has involved government parastatals operating dairy plants which have been receiving milk from local farmers (smallholders and estate owners).
This system has worked well in most countries but has not been very successful in promoting increased milk production because the system neglected the local producer. The local producer has not been consulted in the pricing of milk and hence felt cheated, so instead of increasing his milk production be either dropped the dairying business or only continued on a small scale production without putting in much effort.
It is therefore in this regard that Malawi Dairy Industries, which is the only parastatal organisation operating dairy plants in Malawi, in conjunction with the Department of Animal Health Industry, with the assistance of FAO's Technical Cooperation Programme are training dairy farmers to improve their management and operational skills inorder to fully exploit their potential to produce and market more milk of better quality and also to encourage dairy farmer groups to become self reliant so that in future they can take up all the activities to dairying from production, processing and marketing so that it benefits the farmers themselves.
Milk has been consumed all over Malawi and indeed through out African in its fresh raw state or in a fermented form. In Malawi most rural households have consumed milk produced by their small herds of cattle and have sold whatever remains to people around. In the northern part of Malawi people have tended to prefer fermented milk which they locally produced by putting milk in gourds and keeping it for a few days and later draining water from it so that there remains a thick sourish curdled milk product which is locally called Chambiko. An improved product to replace this Chambiko has been adopted by Malawi Dairy Industries under the same name Chimbuko but processed under controlled fermentation processes and also by use of modern dairy equipment.
To further encourage a lot of households to drink milk modern processing methods, thus pasteurisation, homogenisation, separation have also been adopted by Malawi Dairy Industries so as to provide fresh milk, fresh cream, ice cream and butter for the urban population which does not have milk available in many households.
The dairy industry in Malawi is encouraging smallholder diary farmers to produce more milk so that they can sell this milk to the urban centres where there is an ever growing demand for milk and milk products. At the moment the Department of Animal Health and Industry in the Ministry of Agriculture in conjunction with FAO and Malawi Dairy Industries are training smallholder farmers in clean milk production, ways and means of increasing production and also how they can organise themselves to be able to operate the dairy business on a large scale as they are currently operating as milk bulking groups which sell milk to Malawi Dairy Industries.
In this way the farmers will be able to run this business commercially.
With a view to benefit the smallholder dairy farmer small village dairies could be ideal as they provide a near and everyday market for the producer. In this case only surplus milk which cannot be sold there can be sent to a processing plant. This has also got the advantage that other people, around the villages, who do not own cows can also be able to purchase the milk from the village dairies.
When smallholders sell milk in this way they do not feel cheated by the middleman as they sell direct to consumer. This has a disadvantage in that the small village dairies cannot afford to have other equipment for processing other products in case they have a lot of surpluses. This therefore crates a need to have medium scale dairies also owned by the farmers themselves where they can then send this kind of surplus.
As the need to have these medium scale dairies rises there will be a need to have most of the dairy equipment manufactured locally and hence also develop this industry.
If this happens the rural areas will also develop faster than before. Farmers will this case be able to determine the price to sell the milk and also the a price to sell other products manufactured by their dairies.
Appropriate technologies for processing milk and milk products will be adopted in regard to market demand and the willingness by the consumers to buy the commodities. If products have to sell, the market demand has to be looked into so that only what the market demands can be produced and this will determine what technologies to be adopted. It is useless to adopt sophisticated technologies to produce something which will have to sell at a very high price and the consumer is not prepared to pay that kind of price.
In most cities sale of raw milk is prohibited. This is so because milk is believed to be a very good food for bacteria and other microbes which can be harmful to the consumer if the milk is untreated. It is in this regard that sale of milk is prohibited because if milk is just sold raw it can transmit a lot of diseases like TB if from infected cows.
If safe sale of milk has to be promoted then pasteurisation has to be encouraged at all levels. If pasteurisation is made compulsory prior to sale of milk then it should not be such that it makes the milk more expensive to discourage other people from buying as this will defeat the idea of promoting health in the community as only those who have more money can afford it.
The other way to look at the problem of hygiene/health is to improve other services in the production of milk. In this case the farmer can be educated on clean milk production so that there is always high quality milk produced which will always be safe for consumption even prior to processing.
Considering that this may take some time as it is happening in other countries then cheaper processing materials which can be locally available can be used to process the milk so that it does not become expensive and hence be affordable by most members sof the community.
This paper has tried to outline milk processing requirements for satisfying demand in broad terms. It is felt that for the diary industry to prosper there is a great need to have the farmer, the extension worker and government work hand in hand so that the problems which arc there now can be looked at together. It is only when these problems are understood by all the parties concerned then they can be solved easily.
