Got Milk?
Zimbabwean farmers change lives one liter at a time
Siyengiwe Machina is a problem solver.
A 46-year-old mother of seven, Siyengiwe recently learned how to turn her beef cows into milk producers. But selling the milk she produces isn’t an easy feat. She does not own a car and her rural homestead has no electricity. She must travel an hour down eight miles of loosely packed dirt road to sell her milk. If she doesn’t deliver or refrigerate the milk within two hours, it is not viable for sale.
Given the logistical obstacles she and others face, most smallholder Zimbabwean farmers choose to produce milk only for their own household consumption and forego the income earning opportunity. Some farmers even give milk to their dogs or throw it away because they cannot drink it all before it goes bad.
Zimbabwe imports about 60 million liters of milk every year from South Africa, proving that there is a high demand. However, most Zimbabwean farmers are unable to capitalize on this opportunity due to the challenges of delivering milk to markets before it goes bad.
Fortunately, Siyengiwe is not the kind of person who lets obstacles derail her. A leader in her community with an easy smile and an air of confidence, she eagerly jumped at the chance to pioneer a new model of milk production and sales developed by the Feed the Future Zimbabwe Livestock Development Program.
Siyengiwe is now the “milk aggregator” for her village in Gokwe South, a semiarid stretch of rural Zimbabwe. With the support of her husband, she sold two oxen to purchase a gas-powered refrigerator. Now she buys milk from six members of her community, stores it in her refrigerator, and delivers it in bulk to the Gokwe South milk collection center by taxi every other day.
Saving on time and transport costs, Siyengiwe makes a profit on every liter she buys from her neighbors — who, in turn, have their own new source of income!
USAID/Zimbabwe Mission Director Stephanie Funk explains, “Feed the Future works with smallholder farmers to remove barriers that prevent them from participating in formal markets. We empower farmers with knowledge, then they do the hard work of investing in better business practices, ultimately improving their lives and the lives of their family members.”
Through Feed the Future, one of Siyengiwe ’s suppliers, Anna Zhou, learned how to improve the health of her cows. The resulting increase in milk production provides enough of a surplus to sell and help support her family of eight.
While the small volume of milk she produces is not sufficient to justify transport costs or the fees to become a member of the milk collection center, the milk aggregation model brings the market so close that Anna can deliver just one or two liters a day and earn much needed income. She says the program has transformed her outlook on farming as a business: “Feed the Future continually urges us to improve ourselves.”
Currently, Siyengiwe purchases more than 300 liters of milk from her producer group each month. Informed by USAID-supported training , she tests the milk for adulteration, freshness, and contamination, and keeps careful records of deliveries, payouts to farmers, and overall business performance. Siyengiwe also emphasizes cleanliness, insisting that her producers have toilets and hygienic practices at home. “If there is any contamination of the milk, I reject it,” she declares.
Every other day, Siyengiwe loads the metal canisters of milk into a taxi and spends an hour bumping along the dirt path to the local milk collection center. Her small business accounts for about four percent of the milk delivered to the collection center, a solid boost for the cooperative that runs it.
It is here that Siyengiwe’s milk reaches its final stop.
Consumers can purchase milk right at the window of the collection center while vendors, such as Mlotshwa Sabelo, go door-to-door in the community selling milk in little plastic pouches. In fact, Mlotshwa sells 3,000 liters a month of milk from his bicycle.
“We aim to unlock the potential of the private sector by empowering farmers, connecting them with private enterprises, then stepping out of the way so that the market functions sustainably. Not only do farmers benefit from additional income, but community members are now buying more milk for consumption, which improves nutrition — our ultimate goal,” says Feed the Future Zimbabwe Livestock Development Program’s Chief of Party Kudakwashe Ndoro.
Siyengiwe is one of nearly 32,000 farmers participating in the Feed the Future program to apply new technologies or management practices. The milk aggregator model takes advantage of both new technologies and management practices. Smallholder farmers previously unable to venture into commercial dairy farming can now access formal markets and earn a steady income that is changing their livelihoods — one liter of milk at a time!
About the Authors
Allison DiVincenzo was a Development Outreach and Communications Advisor for USAID’s mission in Zimbabwe. Emeldah Musevenzo is the Senior Communications Specialist with the mission’s Feed the Future Livestock Development Program.
