22 Mar 2013

About P9 million was spent on the construction of infrastructure and purchase of 100 pregnant dairy heifers for the Dairy Production and Training Farm (PTF) at the Sunnyside farm.

Answering a question in Parliament, Assistant Minister of Agriculture, Mr Oreeditse Molebatsi said the running costs were about P8 million since the farm started operating in October 2006.

However Mr Molebatsi said there was revenue collected of over P8million from the sale of milk, male calves and culled cows during the same period.

“Currently the farm is leased out to a private dairy farmer, but with the agreement that is continuous to serve the original objectives of a PTF,” he said.

Also, he said training was conducted for more than 600 farmers and it is still continuing for the dairy sector.

He highlighted that farmers were trained through demonstrations of technologies at the PTF and course conducted over the same period. He further said farmers visit the PTF to date because they want to equip themselves with knowledge of running a commercial dairy farm.

To date, Mr Molebatsi said 100 dairy farmers had embraced NAMPAADD technologies and are putting them to practice in their farms.  He said NAMPAADD  has made considerable impact since its inception.

He said dairy farmers mentored under the NAMPAADD program improved milk production from 7 litres per day at its inception to 15 litres per day by end of 2010/11 financial year.

“Through the guidance of NAMPAADD milk production at national level increased from 4.7 million litres in 2002/03 to 8.3 million litres in 2009/10 but experienced a sharp decrease to 3.1 million liters in 2011/12”, he said.

He said this was due to challenges such as outbreaks of Foot and Mouth and Rift Valley diseases which hindered importation of feed and local sale of milk.

Ngami MP, Mr Taolo Habano had asked the minister to brief Parliament how much has been spent on the dairy section of NAMPAAD since inception Mr Habano also wanted to know how many farmers have been trained and imparted the technology of NAMPAAD.

In addition he further wanted to know how much milk has been produced per year and the yearly shortfalls. Mr Habano also asked the minister whether the results are satisfactory, if not what plans are in place to revive the sector. ENDS