Over 30 women in dairy production from 20 districts in Uganda on Friday 19th April graduated from the Dairy Development Authority (DDA) in Entebbe.
In a five-day training, trainees were skilled in yoghurt making, milk testing, packaging, and marketing of the products among others at Entebbe Dairy Training School.
According to Samson Akankiza Mpiira the acting executive director of the Dairy Development Authority (DDA), their move as DDA and government is to have dairy industries develop to utilize milk through value additional, to promote domestic consumption and stabilize the farm gate prices so that the farmer gets better prices since the processing exercise is done at the nearest point of production.
He therefore noted that the training was mainly to bring them to an understanding of the quality aspects of dairy products and why it’s very important to change milk into different products.
“These small-scale processors can take on the domestic market but also they can graduate to medium scale to be able to export the dairy processing products because they would be able to attain the quality aspect,” Akankiza added.
Herbert Sabila the principal of the Entebbe Dairy Training School remarked that value additional is the way to go because it extends the shelf life of the raw material which is milk and also improves the market.
“Milk is very perishable so if you make yoghurt or ice cream out of it, first of all, you have added value and the products will stay longer than the raw material which is milk for example a liter of milk costs at around shs 1200 but the product out of can cost shs 4000 – 5000,” he added.
Sabila noted that they have been doing such trainings before and over 2000 stakeholders have been trained so far making a difference in dairy production.
He also added that such pieces of training are an opportunity for trainees to network in several ways, such as sharing challenges, problem-solving, and supporting each other.
Joanna Bakimi of Maziwa Dawa Kefir one of the trainees said that they have learned a lot about making yoghurt and how to align their businesses according to UNBS regulations as well as positioning their products for exports to improve on their market which in return will enable their businesses and products to develop.
“We have been trained on safety measures and quality standards to be able to sell the products beyond Uganda,” she added.
The Dairy Development Authority (DDA) is a semi-autonomous agency under the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) that was established by an Act of Parliament, the Dairy Industry Act, 1998 to develop and regulate the dairy industry in Uganda.
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