RAW MILK UNSAFE, CAUSES FOOD-BORNE DISEASES

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.