At the beginning of August, the sealable bottles and containers for milk, sour milk and yoghurt ordered from Nampac in Lusaka on behalf of Zambesi Health were delivered to the cooperative in Kazungula. The Cooperative’s three milk products – filled into hygienic containers – are now available for sale.
Due to the travel restrictions that are still in place for and in risk areas, the third-party project we applied for a few months ago cannot currently be approved. In this respect, we will concentrate on what can be coordinated from here.
Observing what we consider a trivial piece of advice – that cattle that are supposed to give milk also need access to a drinking trough at night – has almost doubled the daily milk yield of the cooperative cows. Most of the small farmers only keep the herds for meat and still have too little experience in handling dairy cattle. In addition, there is no rain in Zambia during our summer months and the pastureland is correspondingly barren.
Our “hygiene officer” regularly visits the cattle farmers by bike and imparts basic knowledge about milking hygiene. Thankfully, he can refer to an FAO training brochure for small-scale milk traders.
