The Tanga Dairy Cooperative Union (TDCU) needs capital injection to the tune of 3bn/- to expand its milk and byproducts processing capacity and improve its services to?farmers in the region.
The Chairman of the Union, Dr Ali Majani said here recently that TDCU needed the funds to purchase land and construct a new environmentally friendly milk processing plant to increase the current capacity from 15,000 liters of milk per day to 25,000.
Briefing Members of the Permanent, Parliamentary Agricultural, Lands and Livestock Committee who visited the present milk processing facility, Tanga Fresh Ltd, Dr Majani said the expansion would enable the union to face up to the challenge of 15 per cent annual increase in milk production from the dairy farmers.
TDCU is made of nine dairy cooperative societies spread in the whole region.
The dairy processing facility has been forced to invest 150m/- in its short term plans for expansion of the plant, but cannot undertake further expansion because of limited space.
The TDCU is a shareholder of the milk processing facility controlling 305 shares while the other shareholder is a Dutch Cooperatives Society- Frisania, which control the remaining shares.
The plant was established in 1997 to solve the milk marketing problem that had emerged after an increase production by smallholder dairy farmers.
The farmers had been wooed into the vocation by The Netherlands-financed Tanga Dairy Development Programme (TDDP) that has turned into the region’s milk production giant in two decades.
Dr Majani said that apart from constructing a milk processing facility at the site, the union also plans to install a biogas plant to produce energy that would be used to fire the plant.
The biogas plant would be fed by residues from a planned dairy farm that is scheduled to produce 3,000 liters of milk per day to be used for the manufacturing of specialised products.
The planned area would also include an animal feed farm that would be irrigated, using water from the milk processing plant.
Construction of an animal feed factory is also in plan in the same area with its products geared for selling to the union members at low prices.
In an attempt to enhance production of better quality heifers through Artificial Insemination (AI), the union plans to use the proposed site to build a factory that would produce Liqufied Nitrogen to be used in storing sperms for AI.
Meanwhile, the government has been urged to free consumers of milk and its products from paying VAT.
He told the visiting MPS that the dairy sector was still young and sensitive that it should be empowered to grow to be at par with that found in the neighboring countries.
At the same time, payments to dairy farmers from Tanga Fresh Ltd milk processing plant increased from 67m/- in 1997 when its was established to? 1.4bn/- last year (2005).
The plant has the capacity of processing 15,000 liters of milk per day.
