Milk industry 95% dependent on imports :: Mmegi Online

Botswana is still heavily dependent on imports for milk and related products, with 95 percent of the national demand currently being met by supply from outside the country. The Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) public relations officer Boikhutso Rabasha told Mmegi Business that the dependency was mainly due to lack of infrastructure, shortage of quality feeds, low farm gate price and lack of appropriate funding to support the sector.

To address this shortage, Rabasha said last year the government came up and implemented a strategy that focuses on development of the appropriate dairy support infrastructure.

In the strategy, ‘Viable Competitive and Profitable Dairy sector’ the MOA has set a local milk production target of six million litres per annum up from the current output of 2.4 million litres. Currently national demand stands at 48 million litres. “The country is not able to meet the target due to the challenges that we have, hence continues to import such products to meet the local demand,” Rabasha said.

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