The Contribution of Swaziland Dairy Board on Dairy Farmers’ Productivity: A Case of Mbabane Sub-Region, Swaziland

Abstract

The Swaziland Dairy Board (SDB) was established under the Act No. 28 of 1968 to promote increased dairy production to satisfy the domestic and export market. Despite numerous efforts of SDB through its dairy policy goals, Swaziland is failing to achieve self-sufficiency in liquid milk production, and can hardly sustain its local demand. Therefore, the study aimed at establishing the contribution of SDB policy goals on smallholder dairy farmers’ productivity. Primary data was collected from 120 dairy farmers through the use of a structured questionnaire in the Mbabane sub-region. The study characterized dairy farmers as mostly male (57%) who are aged above 55 years and married (88%), attained secondary education(48%) with farming experience of 4 years, milking averagely 2 cows per day, and each cow yielding averagely 10 litres and 13 litres per day for non-SDB and SDB members, respectively. The results further revealed that farmers trained by SDB were practicing more of the recommended animal husbandry practices compared to non-SDB farmers. Moreover, the SDB farmer’s milk yields were higher than non-SDB farmers at 10% significant level, although SDB farmers’ milk productivity is still regarded relatively low. Factors influencing productivity of milk among small holder dairy farmers included sex of the farmer, age, dairy sales incomes, number of milking cows, market distance, use of supplementary feed, dairy records keeping and the breeding system. Therefore, local milk production can increase if the stakeholders in the dairy industry can adopt SDB policy strategies, dairy related services and good livestock husbandry practices.