According to The Citizen: Despite being second in the continent for the number of livestock, Tanzania is facing a deficit of nine billion litres in order to become milk self-sufficient. The number of cattle has increased from 35.3 million to 36.6 million in the 2022/23 financial year, while that of goats has increased from 25.6 million to 26.6 million. The number of other milk-producing animals, such as camels, is negligible in Tanzania.
Because of the deficit, Tanzania had to import milk from outside the country. By April 30, 2023, a total of 11.6 million litres had been imported, worth Sh22.766 billion.
Rogathe Dairy is working hard to fill in this gap, working with over 1,500 smallholder farmers to aggregate and process the milk from their cows.
Beyond providing nutrition to children and mothers, this work also greatly increases the incomes of the dairy farmers, on averaging growing the incomes of the smallholder farmers by 300%-400%. Plus all this milk offsets imports, saving the country of Tanzania from tapping into the supply of hard currency.
A win-win-win-win-win for consumers, farmers, Tanzania, Rogathe Diary, and Africa Eats.
