Zambia lifts ban on Lato milk in Uganda, Kenya is ready for talks

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Zambia lifts Lato milk ban in Uganda, Kenya is ready for talks

Monday, November 1st, 2021

A woman buys milk in a supermarket in Nyeri. FILE PHOTO | NMG

general indandae

BY GERALD ANDAE
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  • Zambia has now allowed the import of Uganda’s Lato milk, the sale of which has been discontinued in Kenya due to standard concerns.
  • The deal opens up a new market for Ugandan dairy farmers that remains inaccessible to their Kenyan counterparts.

Zambia has now allowed the import of Uganda’s Lato milk, the sale of which has been discontinued in Kenya due to standard concerns.

The deal opens up a new market for Ugandan dairy farmers that remains inaccessible to their Kenyan colleagues, as Zambia banned milk imports from Kenya 13 years ago, also for quality reasons.

Pearl Dairy Farms Limited has suffered huge losses since the Kenyan authorities blocked Uganda’s milk and dairy products on December 27, 2019 on the grounds that Kampala was unable to produce the alleged goods and argued that part of its exports were in Powdered form imported into Uganda is milk before reconstitution.

With a daily capacity of 800,000 liters, the company is the largest milk processor in Uganda. His brand was popular in Kenya and sold at a lower cost compared to local ones before the ban.

Uganda’s Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries Minister Frank Tumwebaze said countries that question Uganda’s ability to produce quality products should visit the country and see that it is able to meet the quality requirements.

“People deny us the market for our milk and dairy products because of the quality … we are ready to be inspected. Pearl Dairy is an example of one of those good investments. Let them come, ”he said.

“Zambia sent its inspectors here and that’s why they were able to certify that this is a good product for their market.”

A Kenyan delegation is due to visit Uganda this month to discuss the dairy trade impasse between the two countries and to conduct a verification mission to confirm Uganda is able to produce surplus and quality products.

Countries are relying on quality reasons to ban milk imports, a move that some economists see as a form of protectionism in their own dairy sector.

Zambia’s ban on Kenyan milk imports 13 years ago followed a petition by the Zambian Dairy Processors Association (ZDPA) alleging that Kenyan raw milk exceeded the national total bacterial count (TBC) of 200,000 per milliliter. Kenya follows the global benchmark of one million TBC per milliliter.

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