Dodoma — THE Tanzania Dairy Board (TDB) has partnered with key local and international stakeholders in the milk sub-sector for supplying free drinking milk to at least 3000 pupils in different primary schools in Dodoma region.
Apart from being a move to observe this year's World School Milk Day, the timely nutritious campaign also focuses on increasing milk drinking culture from grassroots levels across the country.
The World School Milk Day this year was marked on September 28, and the day was created in 2001 by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations with a general purpose to recognize the importance of milk
Among the stakeholders and development partners that decided to ramp -up efforts to help free distribution of the product to the pupils include FAO, European Union (EU), ASAS Dairy Farm, and the livestock ministry.
Speaking during the occasion, TDB' Registrar Dr. George Msalya observed that the day was very important in helping improve milk drinking culture from grassroots levels within the country.
He added, milk drinking had potential in elevating cognitive and learning ability among the pupils, adding that the board was crippled with some financial constraints to help it run similar programmes across the country.
"To continue running sustainable milk programme to pupils, we need to have collective intervention from various stakeholders and donors," he noted.
For the past fourteen years, 2006 to September 2020, the Government of Tanzania, through the Tanzania Dairy Board (TDB) has been implementing the School Milk Feeding Programme (SMFP) with an eye to improve milk production and consumption in the country.
The timely programme was spearheaded by Heifer International, through East Africa Dairy Development (EADD) and it aimed at, among other things, improving health status among pupils and promote milk drinking culture from the grassroots in the country.
While the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that an individual should drink at least 200 litres of milk in a year, the relevant statistics is still very discouraging in Tanzania, currently at only 54 litres in a year.
The programme which used to receive major support from key domestic dairy stakeholders like ASAS and Tanga Fresh, is also geared to create a stable demand for milk in the country as well as boost milk yields and incomes among small scale herders across the country.
From 2006 to September 2020, the programme saw at least 12,023,186.83 litres of milk, worth 19.24/bn- freely distributed to pupils in different 210 primary schools within the country, whereby a total of 89,922 pupils in ten regions of Kilimanjaro, Arusha, Tanga, Dar es Salaam, Iringa, Mbeya, Njombe, Morogoro, Mwanza and Mara benefited accordingly.
So far, numerous academic and health researchers have proved that the School Milk Feeding Programme is very helpful in improving children's mental-cognitive and physical health status apart from playing a key role in containing pupils' school absenteeism.
But the 2018/19 fiscal year saw the phasing- out of the long- standing Heifer International's sponsorship package towards the essential programme in Tanzania, a move which prompted TDB to cut down the number of beneficiary schools to only 30 from formal 210.
The World School Milk Day was marked on 28 September. This date was chosen because schools were open in all the countries surveyed during the month.
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The end of the month was selected to allow countries in the Western hemisphere sufficient time to prepare for the day, as in most of these countries the academic year starts in early September.
The 1st World School Milk Day was marked in 2000 and it has since become an annual event.
A number of countries - regardless of whether they are large or small, rich or poor - celebrate the World School Milk Day, demonstrating that the interest in school milk is universal.
Importance is lent to the event by the fact that other countries are doing the same thing, on the same day, and that Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is supporting the activity.
FAO's role is to co-ordinate celebrations by informing people through the Dairy-Outlook and School-Milk lists about the Day and collating information from list members regarding preparations for celebrating this Day and inspire others to join in.
