Milk production and viability of the various smallholder dairying models used in Zimbabwe

An evaluation of milk yield, dairy products and viability of the smallholder dairy production models used in Zimbabwe was carried out. We used secondary data on 1167 smallholder dairy farmers. These were categorised into commercial dairying (119), Milk collection centre (MCC) bulking and processing (145), MCC bulking and delivering to processor (87), farm gate (468) and other (348) models. Data were analysed using SPSS version 25.0. The average daily milk yield per cows was highest in the Commercial dairying model (9.20 ± 0.4 l) but was not significantly different from the MCC bulking and processing and MCC bulking and delivering to processor models. Average lactation milk yield per cow was highest (P < 0.05) in the commercial dairying model (2804.91 ± 133.9 l) and was significantly different from the rest of the models. The processed milk products identified in the study were fermented milk, pasteurised milk and unspecified products but production volumes were very low in the respective models. There were no differences (P > 0.05) in gross margin across all the smallholder dairying models. The commercial dairying model surpassed all models on proportion of pure exotic dairy breeds, number of milking cows, milk yield. However, it was discovered that all models were underperforming but smallholder dairy farmers can be recommended to adopt the commercial dairying model if measures to improve milk yield per cow and reduce milk production costs are established.