Andrew Tuimur, chief administrative secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture. file photo | nmg
A 25 per cent rebound in quarter one dairy production has removed the need for milk import.
Latest
industry report by the Kenya Dairy Board covering between January and
March indicates the volume of milk has gone up from 47.9 million
kilogrammes in January to 60.2 million kilogrammes last month.
The increase in volume has been attributed to rains that pounded most parts of the country in recent months.
“We
have witnessed growth in volumes in the last couple of months because
of the rains and we expect the quantities to go up in the coming days,”
said Andrew Tuimur, chief administrative secretary in the Ministry of
Agriculture.
“With this growth, it is unlikely that we are going to import powder milk as the quantities are now sufficient,” said Dr Tuimur.
In
February, he had indicated there was a likelihood of removing duty on
imported powdered milk following a 20 per cent decline in production to
allow importation of the commodity to tame possible rise in consumer
prices.
Milk imports attract a 60 per cent duty plus an
additional seven per cent Dairy Board levy, making its importation a
costly affair.
Last
year, the Treasury scrapped duty on imported powder milk to curb rising
prices, allowing processors to import 9,000 tonnes of the commodity.
However,
the firms only managed to ship in about 4,500 tonnes by the time the
window was closing in December. Processors cited high international
prices as the reason they could not import all the required volumes.
Kenya
has an annual processing capacity of 1.4 billion litres, which
translates to 3.9 million litres a day. But processors do not operate
optimally due to milk sold in the informal sector.
KDB
managing director Margaret Kibogy said the board is working with other
stakeholders in training farmers to embrace the formal market for their
milk, a move that also aimed at raising safety standards.
KDB
has been educating consumers on importance of consuming processed milk
but households have been constraint by high cost of the processed
product.
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