Reducing Milk Wastage in the Milk Value Chain in Kanchomba Area of Pemba District in Southern Zambia

Abstract

Since June, 2015, Kanchomba farmers in Pemba district of Southern Zambia have been supplying milk to Kanchomba Milk Collection Centre (MCC) which has been supplying to Parmalat Zambia. This survey examines the milk wastage in both quantity and quality along the value chain which reduces farmers’ income and nutrition in order to identify the Critical Control Points (CCPs) to reduce the wastage. Data for the study was collected through a semi-structured interview that was conducted to a sample of 36 dairy farmers in Kanchomba area of Pemba District, categorized as 13 from low, 9 from middle and 7 from high producing farmers to give a fair representation. Analysis was done by identifying the key themes that may contribute to wastage, i.e activities of farmers during milking, activities of the MCC from the time they receive milk from farmers to selling and attributes of good quality milk as considered by Parmalat (Z). The analysis revealed that between January, 2017 and January, 2018, farmers lost 12.6% of the milk they supplied to the MCC which was not bought by Parmalat (Z) due to poor quality. Further analysis showed that this is attributed to various causes ranging from poor hygiene at the MCC, poor milking processes by farmers, to irregular timing in milk delivery to the MCC by farmers and collection from the MCC by Parmalat (Z). These results cast doubt on the efficacy of this value chain to reduce poverty and improve household income and food nutrition and security among smallholder farmers. All the chain players may have to implement the recommendations which have been categorised into do it now, do it soon and do it later based on the time required, difficulty and cost implications in implementing the recommendations.