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Milk is a very nutritious food because it has essential nutrients required by the human body but is prone to contamination and is very perishable. Milk, if it is badly handled, can pose a health risk to the consumers. It is for these reasons that governments all over the world have in place a set of laws and regulations in place to ensure that before it reaches the consumer, milk is handled properly so that the consumer is assured of a safe and wholesome product and gets the intended benefits of consuming milk and milk products. In Tanzania the safety and quality of milk and milk products is regulated by the Tanzania Dairy Board the description of which is given hereunder.
The Tanzania Dairy Board was appointed in 2005 and was officially inaugurated on 11th November, 2005. This makes the history of the Board very short indeed but the history of regulation of the Dairy Industry in Tanzania dates far back as shown below.
The history of regulation of the dairy industry in Tanzania starts with the colonial phase, 1921 -1960. During this period, the dairy industry was geared towards meeting the needs of the colonials, Indians and a few natives mainly in the urban areas of Dar es Salaam. The colonial government was the main actor during this formative period of the dairy industry. However, realizing the complexity and the private farming nature of the dairy production, the colonial Government withdrew completely from milk production, processing and marketing and left everything to private operators by 1960. In the subsequent period the Government directed its focus to the regulation of these enterprises in order to ensure both the public health and further development of the dairy industry
After independence between 1961 and 1965 the operation of dairy sector was led by the “Dairy Industry Ordinance No. 61 of 1961 Cap. 456. This law established Zonal Dairy Boards in areas which produced sufficient amounts of milk to warrant establishment of a dairy plant (Dar/Coast, Arusha/Kilimanjaro and Mara). The dairy industry ordinance was later repealed and replaced by the Dairy Industry Act No. 32 of 1965 Cap 590. This Act established the National Dairy Board to regulate and co-ordinate the development of the dairy industry. The main part of this legislation was directing each milk producer to sell his/her milk only to the nearby dairy factory. This move gave the dairy processing factories a de facto monopoly on the dairy industry in that it decided on which price to pay to the producer and how much to charge for their products.
There was a drastic policy change after the 1967 Arusha Declaration whereby all large scale dairy farms and milk processing factories were nationalised thus bringing the government into direct production and trade in milk and milk products. In 1974 the Tanzania government established the Livestock Development Authority (LIDA).Subsequently LIDA formed two subsidiary companies namely Tanzania Dairies Limited (TDL), to operate the nationalised dairy processing factories and Tanzania Dairy Farming Company (DAFCO), to run the nationalised large scale dairy farms and to open new ones. It was then assumed that these two subsidiaries had taken over the functions of the dairy board and therefore the minister responsible for livestock development did not appoint the board since that year. Therefore the board became moribund, that is it continued to exist in law but non functional in practice.
With the advent of the 1980s there was another equally important policy shift towards the private sector involvement when the government in partnership with various donors established several Smallholder Dairy Development projects such as Heifer Project International (HPI), Kagera Livestock Development Project (KALIDEP), Tanga Dairy Development Project (TDDP) and the Southern Highlands Dairy Development Project (SHDDP) in Iringa and Mbeya regions. This policy shift was reflected in the National Agriculture Policy of 1983 and later the National Agriculture and Livestock Policy of 1997. These two policy documents allowed the entrance of the private sector in milk production processing and marketing. With the economic restructuring policies started in the late 1980s, whereby the government withdrew from direct production and marketing, TDL and DAFCO died or some of their operations were privatised and their place was taken over by the private sector. With the expanding private sector involvement there evolved a need to have in place new legislation to govern the industry.
From 1998 the Dairy industry stakeholders initiated the process of enactment of a new law by forming a Task Force (TF 98) to prepare a draft proposal. The task force presented its proposal at the 4th National Dairy Development Conference in 2002 at which the Stakeholders formed an Interim Tanzania Dairy Board. Among the tasks of the interim board was to follow up on the enactment of the new law. The new law was enacted in April 2004 as The Dairy Industry Act No. 8, 2004.
The Dairy Industry Act, 2004 has repealed the old one, the Dairy Industry Act, 1965, Cap. 590. The new Act intends to regulate, develop and promote milk and milk products production, processing, marketing and consumption in order to meet the new socio-economic changes occurring in Tanzania. The Act will, among other things, involve stakeholders in the development of the sub sector and elimination of problems facing the sub sector in the country. Under the Dairy Industry Act No. 8, 2004, the then Minister of Water and Livestock Development. Hon. Edward Lowassa appointed the Tanzania Dairy Board which was inaugurated on 11th November 2005. In his inaugural speech the Minister said that the main challenge to the Board was “To make sure that the development of the dairy sub - sector is properly supervised and coordinated so as to increase its contribution to the national economy and improvement of the livelihood Tanzanians”
The main differentiating features of the Tanzania Dairy Board appointed under the Dairy Industry Act, 2004 are that:
• It is more participatory in that it gives the stakeholders more decision making powers and involves them in supervision of implementation of the decisions made,
• It is more democratic in that each member except the chairperson both in the Annual Council and the Board has one vote,
• It is more autonomous in that it acts on decisions of stakeholders and is answerable to stakeholders,
• It is more stakeholder friendly as it has more members representing the stakeholders who are elected by the stakeholders themselves and
• Gives equal emphasis to development, promotion and regulation and is not just a regulatory organ
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