Sustainable milk production in Mauritius: New strategic directions to revamp the dairy sector

Full text: Mauritius is totally dependent on importation for its milk and milk products. The present local milk production amounts to 4.0M litres of milk annually (400 MT dry equivalent) which represent only 2% of the total local requirements for milk (21, 700MT). Milk and milk products imports cost the country around Rs 2 billion (1 U$ ∼ Rs30) annually. The recent successive increases in prices of imported milk have impacted negatively on the food import bills and the retail price of powdered milk has also increased drastically. The dairy sector in Mauritius is mainly characterised by backyard producers operating on a low input- low output system. Over the years, the number of cattle and farmers has declined steadily from 9600 in 2000 to 5800 head in 2006 while the number of farmers has also declined from 2500 to 1700 for the same period. In the past, a wide range of initiatives has been taken to develop the domestic milk sector, but milk production has not increased. Under the present circumstances, it is imperative to revamp the local milk production sector. In this context, the Government has drafted developmental policies for boosting the milk sector. However, such policy needs to be implemented through a coherent framework of actions. This study attempts to firstly to gain a better understanding of the existing potentials and constraints of the smallholder dairy industry and secondly to propose an approach for successful implementation of the policies. In an extensive questionnaire based survey with the dairy producers and interviews with key informants in the sector, the main factors identified for the decline of the dairy herd population and productivity are increasing cost of production, ageing of cow breeders, better job opportunities offered to the younger and educated generation in other sectors of the economy, distorted economic policy, poor genetic potential of the herd, limited land availability for cultivating pasture, seasonal scarcity of fodder and grass, low quality of concentrates, inefficient marketing facilities scheme and reproductive problems mainly due to inefficient artificial insemination service. The survey has also shown that the dairy producers are socially, economically and technically diverse. A new category of dairy producers is now investing in medium and large sized scale dairying production systems. One of the medium sized farms is now producing about 1000 litres of milk daily. A holistic approach is being proposed to increase milk production over the next 10 years. The 3 main strategies being proposed are setting up and operation of 10-20 dairy units, equipped with appropriate housing systems and modern equipment, scattered around the island. These dairy units will be rented to selected farmers who have proven experience in dairy farming and those who have followed training courses in milk production. The second one proposes to restructure the existing medium sized dairy farms such as dairy cooperatives to increase their efficiency and effectiveness of producing milk of good quality. Finally, the last strategy is to build large-scale farms on land that would be released following the restructuring of the sugar cane industry. The successful implementation of the strategies hinges on the following approaches; supply of dairy cattle stock of good genetic potential adaptable to the local conditions, development of appropriate infrastructure and logistics (e.g., housing), ensuring a regular supply of fodder and concentrates feeds, provision of more veterinary support to the dairy farmers, adoption of sound reproductive management of the herd, improvement of the technical education of farmers and farm staff through training, and the development of an organized system of milk collection and marketing schemes. It is postulated that the adoption of these strategies will benefit the local dairy industry through increased herd size, and increased availability of fresh quality milk and the development of sustainable and environmental friendly dairy enterprises. The data generated from the survey has been fitted into a model to estimate the total acreage of land, number of animals, total feed requirements and herd progression over the years for the implementation of the proposals. It is estimated that milk production can be increased to about 22 million litres of milk by 2015, which would represent a 10% self-sufficiency ratio in fresh milk. (author)