Land O’ Lakes has been awarded with a US$3.8m, 24-month extension from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) for its dairy development programme in Zimbabwe.
The company said on Tuesday (21 June) that it will continue to build on the gains achieved during the programme’s first 18 months and the award will help it continue to “build livelihoods, increase incomes, promote food security, and scale-up to national levels development activities across the dairy value chain”.
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The programme’s activities will focus on assisting vulnerable but viable smallholder farms – particularly those with female heads of household, to increase milk production, rebuild dairy production capacity, improve rangeland management, enhance preventative animal health services, stimulate market linkages among value chain actors, and promote the use of donkey draught power in dairy production.
Land O’ Lakes said that livestock was once an important pillar of the Zimbabwean livelihood asset base, but herds and livestock productivity have been devastated by political instability and food insecurity, with households selling off much of their livestock and other assets to buy staple foods.
During the programme’s first 18 months, Land O’ Lakes established a revolving cattle loat facility that facilitated the purchase of more than 200 milk cows, set up a stock feed revolving fund that enabled farmers to access 10.5 tons of dairy feeds and assisted farmers to set aside 650 hectares of land for improved fodder production.
Land O’ Lakes said the scheme has also directly contributed increased annual milk production, with smallholder farmers increasing their sales through formal markets by 496,984 litres by the end of 2010, and an additional 253,316 litres by May 2011.
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