Lack of viable markets for dairy farming has been singled out to be the major challenge that smallholder farmers in Zomba district are facing.

Zomba Agriculture Farm and Resource Center Manager, Steve Namunde told YFM online that dairy farmers are having challenges due to the absence of milk processors in the district.

“We don’t have a milk processor here in Zomba. Back in the days there were some from Lilongwe and Blantyre but they moved elsewhere,” he said.

Namunde said the milk processors decided to move elsewhere due to inadequate supply of milk from smallholder dairy farmers.

“The quantity that our farmers were producing was not sufficient enough as compared to the cost so the processors complained that they were making loses,” he explained.

Namunde due to the current situation, dairy farmers opt to sell their milk locally at lower profits.

“Daily farmers just take their milk to people’s door steps but some find that others had already bought milk from standard markets. In return the milk goes bad due to too much heat,” he said.