12 Apr 2021

The Minister of Agricultural Development and Food Security Mr Karabo Gare says his ministry will  take over the Serowe Milk Processing Plant to resuscitate it and bring it back to production.

Speaking during a tour of the plant recently, Minister Gare said his ministry was in the process of engaging a specialist to repair the plant through the Economic Recovery and Transformation programme.

Mr Gare noted  that the plant’s present state was not fitting and needed to be repaired.

He further said that the Serowe milk processing plant was strategically built to support dairy beneficiaries in the Central District.

He said his ministry would  continue to engage the farmers to improve production through the government interventions supporting small scale farmers.

He said farmers had been given a special dispensation to import raw milk to augment the local production but had not yet explored it fully.

He said the country imported 65 million litres of milk annually and sometimes such was not possible due to COVID-19.

Mr Gare said sometimes the production of milk in the countries which export milk to the country would be under lockdown and there would be shortage of milk.

The minister called on dairy farmers to buy quality cattle to improve the milk production in the country to meet the demand. 

He urged the farmers to make dairy farming a profitable business that could create jobs.

Mr Gare said dairy production was important because of its value chains that one could get from it. 

He said the tour of the plant was important for him to get first hand information.

Serowe Milk Marketing Association chairperson, Mr Meshack Matshambani informed Minister Gare that the plant was handed to them in 2011 by the Ministry of Agricultural Development and Food Security.

He said the association was selling milk to government departments such as Sekgoma Memorial Hospital, Serowe College of Education and Palapye Primary Hospital.

The chairperson said though they were making profit, they spent a lot of money buying some of the equipment in the plant.

He said the plant started experiencing problems in 2017 and was closed due to breakdown in December 2019.

The District Agricultural Coordinator- Central Mr Obert Mabutha said that the plant was built to support dairy beneficiaries of Finance Assistance Policy in central district. He said the facility had a capacity of 8000 litres per day and was processing 60 000 litres of milk per year. BOPA