eBusiness Weekly
Africa Moyo
Milk processer, Dairibord Zimbabwe Limited, has “significantly” scaled down its heifer programme following inexplicable price increases for the heifers in South Africa where they were being sourced.
DZL chief executive officer Antony Mandiwanza, told members of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Industry and Commerce, who toured the company’s Harare plant on Wednesday; that prices of heifers have soared by over 100 percent, in US dollar terms, making it economically unviable to stock them.
“We have scaled back significantly on the heifer programme,” said Mandiwanza.
“First thing is the typical market distortions that carry a cost. The major source of our heifers was South Africa. We would send Government inspectors down to South Africa; they check the heifers, the conditions in which they live, the disease status, and then we buy and bring them.
“When we started the initiative, we were paying per beast $1 200. “That price, within a period of two years, escalated to $2 500. As at today (Wednesday this week), the average price per beast is $2 300 from SA.”
Mandiwanza said he suspects that the South Africans increased the price of heifers after realising that Zimbabwe was a “captive market”.
“We have had to scale done because if we continued buying at $2 500, it would be economically unviable for the farmer to receive such a cow and put it into milk given the producer price that they get,” said Mandiwanza.
In 2015, DZL announced plans to shell out $1 million on importing 500 heifers, with the aim of increasing milk production by 200 000 litres per month.
But Mandiwanza said the high cost of heifers has not stopped them from exploring other avenues of boosting their heifers.
“. . . it does not mean we are not been pursuing other strategic initiatives, such as technology which has moved on. A lot of people would buy what is called semen.
“That semen, we import into the country and apply to the mombes. “Fortunately, we now have a full team of our resident vet doctors, with five of them spread into every strategic corner of the corner of the country they then assist small-scale farmers with the application of artificial insemination in order to lessen the cost of importing heifers into the country.
“That’s how we are looking at that issue,” said Mandiwanza.
Currently, the heifers are contributing 11 percent of DZL’s milk.
Dairy milk production increased by 19 percent as at last year to 75,4 million litres compared to the prior year, driven by a number of interventions by Government and the private sector.
A 2018 report released by the Department of Livestock and Veterinary Services’ Dairy Services Unit shows that milk production rose from almost 66,4 million litres in 2017 to 75,4 million litres last year.
Capacity utilisation by milk processors also surged by 16 percent, as milk intake by processors during the year increased by 20 percent to 67,9 million litres compared to 2017.
In 2017, 59,4 million litres were processed.
