By Vision Reporter
During the 2025 Expo, Dr Jolly Kabirizi will train dairy farmers in innovative ways to feed their cows and increase milk yields. This session will take place next Saturday at 2:00pm.
Smallholder (one to 10 cows kept on less than 0.5 acres of land) dairy farmers contribute significantly to Uganda’s economy, providing livelihoods to millions of people while giving nutrition and food security.
The number of farmers in Uganda, particularly women keeping improved dairy cows in urban (heavily populated) areas, has increased during the last decade.
This could be due to the high demand for dairy products by the increasing population in urban areas, the need to improve household nutrition and to provide an alternative source of income.
With advances in breeding technologies, many farmers have gained access to high-quality dairy cattle genotypes.
Challenges in urban settings
The major challenges impacting smallholder dairy cattle production systems in urban areas of Uganda include socio-economic, technological, institutional and financial.
The significant technical constraints are availability and quantity of feed, reproductive inefficiency, improper manure management, poor breeds, breeding programmes and policies, and health and diseases.
Waste to feeds
Feeds account for over 60% of the total cost of milk production.
The introduction of high-producing cows of large frame size accentuates the nutritional deficiency problem, particularly of lactating dairy cows.
This could undermine reproductive functions, lactation and growth of the animals.
Thus, inadequate nutrition from low quality and quantity of feeds as well as a limited knowledge of productivity-enhancing technologies have been identified as major constraints in smallholder dairy production systems in urban areas.
Inadequate feed supply is due to many interacting factors, which include land shortage, high cost of feeds, climate risks (drought and floods), poor quality of feeds and unimproved practices used by farmers in the utilisation of available local feed resources.
Due to land scarcity, dairy cattle farmers in urban areas practice a “zero dairy cattle production system”, where the cows are kept in a stall entirely.
Feed and water are brought to them. Zero grazing requires the “cut-and-carry” feeding method where the recommended high-yielding Napier grass (elephant grass) fodder, forage legumes, concentrates, water and mineral supplements are fed to the cows to provide proteins, energy and minerals.
All the energy reserved from the movement is diverted to increase milk production.
Due to population pressure in urban areas, Napier grass fodder is expensive. Also, it is less available in urban areas.
As a result, dairy farmers often underfeed the cows, especially during the dry season when poor quality forages and crop residues are available.
Consequently, farmers use alternative feed resources such as giant reed grass from swampy areas, grass from roadsides, banana peels plus fruit and vegetable wastes. Making the right diet choices and limiting the supply of nutrients are challenges to urban dairy cattle farmers.
However, feeding dairy cows processed agricultural and agro-industrial wastes and conserved feeds (hay, silage and haylage) is an important strategy for coping with feed scarcity.
The projected increased demand for dairy cattle products in Uganda calls for innovative feed technology development to sustain the increased demand in urban areas.
Agricultural waste
Agricultural waste is unwanted or unsaleable materials from farming operations directly related to growing crops or raising animals.
The bulk of the farmed food in Uganda is transported to towns and cities in its raw form, thus compounding the net effect on large waste deposits in urban markets, around homes and in slums as well as in various dumping grounds.
With an ever-expanding population and increasing urbanisation rates, Kampala faces mounting challenges in managing solid waste, including inadequate infrastructure, limited resources, and informal waste disposal practices.
In Kampala, over 2,000 tonnes of waste is produced every month. Kampala market vendors have raised concerns about the garbage in the markets and surrounding areas.
The vendors in Owino, Kalerwe and Kasubi markets say they have failed to sell food due to the stench of the uncollected garbage.
They add that the situation has become unbearable and customers have started shunning their businesses.
Since the Kiteezi disaster, refuse from the Owino market has remained uncollected for days.
In Kasubi, the market chairperson said: “The situation becomes unbearable when it rains. Rainwater washes the garbage into the market, posing a risk to people’s lives. An overpowering stench has developed near their stalls, leading to health risks.”
Kampala Capital City Authority has been struggling to secure a garbage disposal site ever since the Kiteezi landfill collapsed, killing more than 30 people.
Household refuse
The composition of household solid waste generated in Kampala city is mainly vegetable/organic matter (83.6%), consisting of peelings and cuttings.
Other discarded items include vegetable remains of food items such as bananas, cassava, sweet potato vines, cereals, fresh bean pod residues, waste food, fruit, leaf and grass remains, as well as chicken waste.
Uncollected waste is normally dumped in unauthorised sites, causing health and environmental problems.
However, the organic fraction of domestic waste can provide an opportunity to improve livelihoods and incomes through dairy cattle feed production.
Agro-industrial waste
Agro-industrial by-products are waste items arising from processing crops or animal products.
Agro-industrial by-products for feeding dairy cows include molasses, brewery spent grain, yeast solution, cotton seed cake, soya bean meal, sunflower cake and bran.
Agro-industrial by-products play an important role in urban dairy cattle production systems for the supply of energy and protein which are key components in feeding dairy cattle for optimum productivity.
Cattle excrement disposal
Concentrating a high population of cows in one urban space means millions of litres of manure, urine and slurry to dispose of and enormous amounts of greenhouse gases contributing to climate change, water pollution, disease spread and ammonia damage to wildlife.
A well-fed improved cow produces about 30kg of manure per day. A cow produces 20-24lts of urine daily.
Poor manure disposal causes environmental degradation, diseases and loss of nutrients.
Complaints about odour and flies from dairy cattle operations have increased with the number of large dairy cattle operations, increasing the concentration of animals in urban areas.
Last November 7, the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) closed a dairy cattle farm in Kololo, Kampala for violating multiple environmental regulations.
The farmer was advised to relocate the cows early last year. However, complaints continued prompting a thorough inspection involving the Environment Protection Force.
NEMA noted inadequate waste disposal practices, contravening the National Environment (Waste Management) Regulations, 2020.
NEMA further emphasised the need to protect Kampala’s residential areas from industrial and agricultural pollutants.
Conclusion
Climate-smart urban dairy cattle farming has the power to build the resilience of communities in the face of climate change.
We must help farmer groups and youth learn about good dairy cattle practices on demonstration plots managed by other farmers and farmer training centres.
By adopting climate-smart principles, urban farmers can improve their livelihoods, reduce environmental impact, and contribute to a resilient and sustainable dairy sector.
What to expect
During the Harvest Money Expo, Prof. Kabirizi will demonstrate to farmers how to turn agricultural and agro-industrial waste into high-quality dairy feeds and how the youth can make money out of market farm waste.
Farmers and the youth can adopt technologies developed by the National Livestock Resources Research Institute to turn agricultural and agro-industrial waste into feeds, milk and money, improve milk yield, maintain a clean environment and avoid the Kiteezi landfill tragedy
Benefits of cow dung
Cow dung is not just waste as many believe. When properly managed, it possesses remarkable value.
Cow dung and urine contain valuable nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, which are needed for crops to grow, as well as fibre that can be used in other applications on-farm.
However, in some situations, there is a need to store or transport manure for longer distances for field application — and this can present logistical and environmental challenges.
The good news is that technologies to address these challenges have been developed by the National Livestock Resources Research Institute under the National Agricultural Research Organisation.
With a little planning and ingenuity, however, cattle dung and urine can become important value-added co-products. The two main goals of a successful value-added cattle waste marketing plan are:
▼To establish ready markets for excess waste
▼To keep operational costs low enough to profit from product sales
Kabirizi is a retired livestock nutrition researcher and dairy farmer.
LEAD PHOTO CAPTION: Dairy farming in urban settings presents many challenges, including space for the animals and waste disposal.
