Milk at a chilling plant (photo credit: Flickr/eadairy).

By Mercy Becon

Access to a reliable dairy market and good market prices of milk has transformed the lives of dairy farmers in Kahama District in Tanzania’s Lake zone of Shinyanga. These farmers are beneficiaries of a World Vision Tanzania (WVT) initiative to improve farmers’ lives by developing dairy farming.

According to an article published in coastweek.com, World Vision Tanzania ‘trained the selected rural communities on artificial insemination, increasing the number of improved dairy cattle that have replaced the indigenous cattle which proved to be less effective in milk production’.

To escape poverty, farmers decided to form a dairy cattle keepers’ association for collective action such as sourcing of markets for their dairy products. WVT also established a small-scale milk processing plant, which has greatly increased milk processing in the area and enabled farmers to sell their milk in…