Dairy Cows Boost for Malawi's Mbalame Cooperative Farmers
The TRANSFORM programme, funded by the Royal Norwegian Embassy through NCA DCA to TAPP Malawi, aims to increase access to profitable markets and entrepreneurship opportunities in the country.
DOWA, Malawi— The Sustainable Food Systems for Rural Agriculture Transformation and Resilience (TRANSFORM) Programme through Trustees of Agricultural Promotion Program (TAPP) on Tuesday supported Mbalame Dairy Cooperative in Dowa district with 69 dairy cows worth over K56 million, writes Martin Kamlaike.
The intervention by TAPP aims to enable the cooperative to augment milk production capacity to tap into lucrative markets in the country.
"We have given dairy cows because dairy cows are the biggest game-changer because as you can see this is the only agricultural product that has a very good structured market," said TAPP's Head of Programmes Brown Chitekwere.
"So, for dairy cows, if you give the farmers mainly, they get monthly income just like any other employed person."
Chitekwere urged the cooperative to take care of the cows and follow the guidelines and recommendations from the livestock extension officer to ensure that the cows become profitable and help them achieve their goals.
The interim District Agriculture Officer for Dowa district, Albert Kaputa, commended the TRANSFORM programme for supporting the cooperative with the cows, citing that it will go a long way toward uplifting the livelihood of the farmers.
Kaputa challenged the cooperative to manage the cows with top expertise to maximize their milk production, thereby increasing their chances of making profits from the initiative.
"Our goal as Mbalame dairy cooperative is to start processing our milk because now we are selling the raw milk to off-takers at lower prices as such we would like to start processing our milk into products like cheese, yoghurt and many others to maximize our profits more than our current status," said Pretorius Msonthi, chairperson for Mbalame Dairy Cooperative.
Eluby Kanyenda Kasinja, an agricultural value-chain specialist at the Norwegian Church Aid and Danish Church Aid, said their motive is to enhance access to markets by boosting milk production of the farmers by providing dairy cows, thereby increasing their production.
"We are supporting various cooperatives or farmer organizations. We have a target at least to support about 80 farmer organizations across the districts that TRANSFORM is being implemented which is in Dowa, Mchinji, Kasungu, Mzimba, and Rumphi," she said.
The TRANSFORM programme, funded by the Royal Norwegian Embassy through NCA DCA to TAPP Malawi, aims to increase access to profitable markets and entrepreneurship opportunities in the country.