TANZANIANS have been advised to drink pasteurized milk because
it has higher levels of nutrients and other health benefits unlike raw milk.
Speaking on Friday during the press briefing, Asas Dairies
Ltd, Events and Marketing Manager, Jimmy Kiwelu said drinking pasteurized milk
(the process of heating milk for short time at high temperature) has a health
nutrients contents.
He said that milk is one of the highly recommended liquid for
daily consumption due its health nutrients contents.
“Milk is composed of water and lots food nutrients which obtained from cows and the kind of food cows eat,” he stressed.
Unlike raw milk that has not been pasteurized or homogenized
that can carry dangerous high levels of bacteria such salmonella and listeria,
which can cause serious food–borne illness.
“The Symptoms of food borne illness include vomiting,
diarrhea, and abdominal pain, flu-like symptoms such as fever, headache and
body ache,” he said.
On the issue of economic benefit, if people drink more milk
it will create job opportunities because more industries will be established.
He said that drinking of milk if emphasized by putting up
good policies it will create a lot of jobs and the government will collect
revenues that can to help run the economy.
It is estimated that Tanzania ranked second in milk
consumption in the East African member states, the United Nation's Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) has said.
"Tanzania's per capita milk consumption stands at 39 kilograms
with Kenya coming first at 100 kilograms," he said.
Others are Uganda and Rwanda that stand at 32 kilograms and
19 kilograms respectively. The global average stands at 100 kilograms.
However, Events and Marketing Manager said the big challenge
remains on the improvement the quality of milk so that the produce can access
international markets.
He said dairy offers opportunities for rural livelihoods and
nutritional security, particularly in societies with a cattle-keeping tradition
and that access to credit being one of the biggest stumbling blocks, would be
addressed in the project.
Limited access to credit by smallholders continues to be a
major challenge to commercial dairy in Tanzania.
Marketing functions of the dairy industry seems to be
lagging behind despite of an increase in the number of smallholders’ dairy
farmers and expanding demand for milk in Tanzania.
Asas Dairies Headquarters are in Iringa Municipality, Iringa
Region at the Suburbs of Kibwabwa Industrial area some three kilometers from
the Town Centre.
The installed dairy processing capacity is 18,250,000 liters
per annum, which translate into 50,000 liters per day. Due to inadequate supply
of raw fresh milk from dairy farmers and other sources, the actual current
dairy processing capacity is hardly 30 percent of the installed capacity,
adding that it is resulting in high per unit operational production costs.
On the other hand, Tanzania Dairy Board has announced Asas
Dairies Ltd as an overall winner for three consecutive years (2013, 2014 and
2015) as the best in processing quality dairy products among other dairy
factories in Tanzania during the just ended Manyara Milk Promotion Week May
2015.
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