WANTED: MORE EFFORT IN PROMOTING MILK DRINKING
Tanzania today joins rest of the global community in marking World Milk Day. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations established the day in 2001 to recognise the importance of milk as a global food, and to celebrate the dairy sector.
It also provides an opportunity to focus public attention on milk and to publicise activities connected with milk and the milk industry. This date was chosen because a number of countries were already celebrating a national milk day on or around this time.
Milk consumption in Tanzania is still way below the average recommended by FAO and the World Health Organisation despite Tanzania’s national cattle herd being the third largest in Africa at 25 million animals behind only Ethiopia and Sudan.
Milk consumption in Tanzania averages only 41 litres per person annually whereas FAO and WHO recommend at least 200 litres annually. The consumption of milk is low even in urban areas where people’s disposable incomes are relatively high, and where a litre of milk sold by livestock keepers is still far cheaper than an equal volume of most bottled beverages.
Milk is one of the most nutritious foods, and the fact that its consumption in Tanzania remains unacceptably low points to ignorance among the general population.
This is where the importance of World Milk Day and the week that precedes it come in. Tanzania has been marking Milk Week and Milk Day for more than a decade now, but the aggressive promotion of milk consumption during the annual occasions has been lacking.
Milk Week and Milk Day activities have largely been confined to regions where the occasions are marked nationally.
This should change, and the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries and agencies such as the Tanzania Food and Nutrition Centre should make the occasion a real national event by aggressively expounding the importance of drinking milk all over the country.
UP WITH POLITICAL FREEDOMS
One of the reports on the Front Page of our edition yesterday was headlined ‘New dawn for parties after five years in political oblivion’. This comes about thanks to a decision by President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s government to relax restrictions on the Opposition imposed by her predecessor, the late John Magufuli.
Early in his presidency, Magufuli, in contravention of the Constitution, banned all public political activities by the Opposition until the next elections, which were held in last October. However, Opposition parties have had much-needed breathing space in the last few months, something that was unheard of since early 2016.
Freedoms of speech, association and assembly are natural human rights that are also enshrined in the Constitution.
The multiparty political system is also provided for in the Constitution, and we heartily applaud the government’s efforts to level the political playing field.
Indeed, we all are Tanzanians, seeking to democratically build an all-inclusive prosperous nation for all Tanzanians within the comity of nations
