Sanitary Quality of Raw Milk within the Commodity Subsector in Mbarara District and Kampala City in Uganda

Abstract

The sanitary quality of raw milk is an important issue in Uganda for social, economical and health reasons. The present study carried out on the informal raw milk subsector of Uganda highlighted two main issues: (i) poor hygiene conditions from the production location all the way to the consumer; (ii) lack of an efficient preservation system to limit bacteria development during transportation to Kampala. The bacteria population reached very high levels close to 2 x 10⁶ colony forming units per milliliter on the farm milk of Mbarara District in the southwestern region of the country, and these levels increased 150-fold during transportation to Kampala. The sector also includes rudimentary pasteurization units, where the overheated milk comes out bacteria-free. However, conservation over several days of the overheated milk makes this process potentially more dangerous than beneficial. Thus, the need for all the players of the sector to implement a strategy to improve milk quality can be two ways: (i) by changing common practices to ensure better hygiene conditions; (ii) by improving milk preserving through new methods such as cooling, small-scale pasteurization, or the use of the lactoperoxidase system. This study can help develop a technical and scientific basis to generate quality improvement actions in Uganda. But, whatever the strategy adopted by decision makers, it can only be implemented if all the stakeholders of the sector are involved.