Assessment of on-farm milk handling practices in Mbarara District Southwestern Uganda

Abstract

Milk quality has been markedly linked to milk handling practices. In this paper we report on existing milk handling practices in Mbarara district, western Uganda assessed through a cross-sectional survey. A total of 347 dairy farmer households were randomly selected. Results indicated that the main types of milking containers used were plastic (74.6%). The main source of water used during milking was from springs (39.5%). A high proportion (51.9%) of the milking persons did not use any sanitizer when washing hands prior to milking. 58.5% of the farmers washed the udder prior to milking and 22.2% had clean milking area. Only 22.5% of the farmers tested the milk for mastitis and 79.3% of the farmers did not carry out post-milking treatment. Majority (70.3%) of the farmers preserved unsold milk, mainly by boiling. The study also showed a significant positive association between training in milk handling and cleanness of the milking area and milking containers (Somers’ d = 0.492 and 0.500, p = 0.00 and 0.00, respectively). We concluded that training dairy farmers in proper milk handling practices could improve milk quality and possibly alleviate milk post-harvest losses that occur as a result of poor handling.