By Charles Mangwiro

XAI XAI (Mozambique) - Fifty-four year old Agripa Congolo dumped his well-paying job as a painter in South Africa and returned to his homeland in Xai xai, Mozambique’s southern province of Gaza to take care of his father’s livestock following his death in 1992.

Since then, Congolo embraced what he described as his childhood dream of becoming a livestock herder.

“I am happier as a cattle herder than as a painter. On a good day, I produce 35 liters of high quality milk from 22 cows which are part of a herd of 55.” He told this reporter at his homestead in Chicumbane, an iconic agriculture region on the Limpopo basin, situated some 10 kms east of the city of Xai Xai, the southern provincial capital of
Gaza province, Mozambique’s agriculture heartland.

Although livestock production has good potential in most districts within the Limpopo River basin, it has not been fully exploited partly due to the lack of infrastructure and financial resources. Despite this, livestock production has steadily increased in recent years thanks to the extension advisory services and effort from the private sector.

“My milk is bought by young men and women from the city of Xai xai who then produce flavored homemade yogurt which they then sell to motorists driving along the  National Highway number one. Producing milk and selling it has become part of my life and I’m so much into it that I don’t not think of looking for a job elsewhere”, Congolo explained while gazing at his herd grazing on the dry grass by the river bank. A liter of fresh milk from Congolo’s cow fetches U$ 0.80 cents.

Some businessmen as far as the country’s capital, Maputo situated some 200km away,  see opportunities in the livestock industry, whose mainstay is traditional breeds of cattle, reared by pastoralists, who produce little milk. A long dry spell and flooding due to the cyclone Idai in the last
two years swept and killed off thousands of cows in Limpopo.

“All ages from Maputo and Xai Xai come here every day early to buy milk and their ultimate goal is to use if for the production of homemade yogurt “.

The milk procuring initiative is breaking gender barriers, 29 year old single mother Martha Tovela is one of the milk buyers and produces homemade milk to sell at the Limpopo bridge to early morning motorists and travellers heading either to the capital, Maputo or the northern provinces of Mozambique.

“I am a secondary school dropout. I have been in this business for 8 years. Yogurt production is my income generation activity. I use the money to buy food and for upkeep of my two children whose father abandoned me soon after giving birth”, she told this reporter as she prepared to dash off to an approaching public passenger bus to court
customers.

She oftentimes arrive at the bridge as early as 06:00am daily to join more than 100 other yogurt sellers at this spot. 

According to Tovela, yogurt business is very profitable for her because she gets a double from what she spends on acquiring milk.

Tovela who buys 20 liters of milk daily from Congolo is now planning to double her daily purchase.  “We are very thankful to FNI for coming in to help us with the good business.” She added. I want to learn new technologies for yogurt production as well as its preservation and hygiene because my business will improve its quality."

Tovela who sells a liter of Yogurt to motorists and public passengers at $2.00, enough to keep her running her yogurt production business. “I get a 100 percent net profit from what I spend on buying milk and producing yogurt at home,” says Tovela in an interview.

Tovela is among the many producers in the homemade yogurt enterprise by simply boiling milk in a pot using charcoal which is cheap then adds yeast and sugar for flavor in a process that lasts one day. There are many other young people doing this venture in Xai xai.

But for Mozambique’s National Research Institute (FNI), a value addition project has been earmarked to build capacity among small scale farmers in Xai Xai aimed to take advantage of the milk most of which ends going bad due to poor hygiene production methods and lack of better storage facilities.

FNI is one of the councils participating in the Science Granting Council Initiative (SGCI). FNI was set up in 2005 and was created as a national public institution with administrative autonomy. The FNI receives its mandate from cabinet’ and its attributes were defined as promotion and funding of Science, Technology and Information activities. It has been established as the key mechanism to implement and operationalise the Mozambique Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy.

FNI’s Chief Research and Coordinator Damiao Nguluve said farmers are the main milk sellers while the buyers are other actors in the value chain involved in the  commercialization of milk, not only in Xai-Xai district, but also in Manhiça district in Maputo province.

The milk is sold as fresh for consumers and processed as yogurt in Manhiça and Xai-Xai districts, respectively, however main constraints are animal feed and low genetic potential of local breed for milk production in Manhiça and Xai-Xai districts, respectively.

Nguluve said in an interview that Mozambique, through the FNI, provides funding to research and innovation projects, including technology transfer.

“For example, Agriculture is their main source of livelihood and it plays an important role in poverty reduction and nutritional household food security. Smallholder farmers are raising cattle for milk production and the main breeds used are indigenous, exotic and cross breeds. The daily monetary earning from the sale of milk and milk products has favorable effects on the cash flow of rural households.”, Nguluve said.

In addition, according to Nguluve,  This is where the science granting councils, SGCI, play an important role in brokering, facilitating, funding and coordinating interactions amongst science systems actors.

In so doing, they confront key challenges including inadequate investments in knowledge production, imperfect channels, mechanisms and platforms for information  exchange and inadequate capacities for knowledge and technology uptake.

"We have a milk value chain project that we would have rolled out in August had it not been for the coronavirus pandemic raging across the whole world. But it will  definitely start in January, 2022 and we will be working with milk producers in Xai Xai, in Gaza province.

“At FNI, we are planning to move and assist these milk producers in their businesses. We have lined up a project to train 20 milk producers , 20 yogurts sellers and and 20 yogurt producers to improve their milk production and handling”, he said.

Local farmers have been impressed by FNI’s coming to the Xai Xai region.

Mozambique has a total cattle population of 2.1 million however, “Our biggest problem here is refrigeration and erratic electricity supply and we lose milk in bulk”, Congolo  decried pointing to his non - operational deep freezer where he keeps his day’s milk output.





ENDS