Th HE population of lactating cows is expected to reach 100 000, thanks to Government initiatives and private sector investments in the dairy sector, as the country moves to meet the projected demand of 480 million litres by 2030.
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Zimbabwe is presently implementing policies that put it on course to attain its 2030 objective of an empowered upper middle-income society.
According to the World Bank, for the current 2024 fiscal year, upper middle-income economies are those with a gross national income (GNI) per capita between US$4 466 and US$13 845.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines have set the figure of 45 litres dairy milk equivalence per person per year for low to middle income countries.
Livestock Meat and Advisory Council (LMAC) executive administrator Dr Reneth Mano said the country needed to target 100 000 milk in cow population to achieve milk self-sufficiency by 2030.
"Demand for dairy and most animal proteins and food products tends to increase when disposable family income is rising and to fall precipitously with falling disposable family incomes. As the country targets an upper middle-income status by 2030, a raw milk consumption of 480 million litres has to be met from local production," Dr Mano said.
At 30 litres per person per year, Zimbabwe's dairy sector ought to quadruple its current efforts in order to increase domestic production four-fold to 480 million litres per year.
The country is targeting to reach 115 million litres of raw milk this year.
"The small-scale commercial dairy sub-sector has the potential to achieve these production figures through embracing superior dairy animal genetics. The current genetics is the low performing crossbred dairy cows yielding 3 000 litres of milk per year.
"The average yield for commercial dairy cows of good genetics under proper management is 5 000 litres of raw milk per lactating cow per year," he highlighted.
Dr Mano said middle-income families currently formed the engines for commercial demand for quality assured packaged and branded dairy products manufactured from imported dairy products, as many low-income families have removed milk and cheese from their daily diet.
With imports included, Zimbabwe's per capita dairy consumption is under 10 litres per person per year and highly concentrated in wealthy families that consume over 80 to 100 litres per person per year.
In the 1980s and 1990s the Government used to provide a sachet of fresh milk to every child in every primary school to ensure national food and nutritional security for all children. Dr Mano believes the current thrust of leaving no one and no place behind can achieve this.
Dairy Services Unit (DSU) principal dairy officer, Mr Addmore Waniwa said the average yield per cow per day was 10 litres and to increase this, there was need to upgrade dairy breeds, develop fodder and pastures to improve nutrition.
"In terms of production, small-scale dairy farmers account for two percent of national output, with the medium-scale category on 20 percent while the large-scale contributes 78 percent.
Small-scale dairy farmer processors account for one percent of market share, with medium-scale processors sitting on five percent and large-scale on 94 percent," he said.
Small-scale farmers produce less than 200 litres per day, medium-scale between 200 - 500 litres while the large-scale group produces above 500 litres per day.
Statistics released by the Zimbabwe Association of Dairy Farmers (ZADF) show that raw milk production leaped 51 percent from 66 million litres in 2017 to 99, 82 last year. The milk in cow population also rose by 122 percent from 17 968 in the same year to 39 811 in 2023.
The national dairy herd also rose 13,4 percent from 53 250 in 2022 to 60 398 in 2023.
