‘Small-scale milk producers can make money from cheese’

Small-scale milk producers could start their own artisan cheese-making businesses for a capital outlay of just R24 000.

This was according to research by Dr Faith Nyamakwere of the Department of Animal Sciences at Stellenbosch University (SU). Nyamakwere recently received her PhD in animal sciences from the SU Faculty of AgriSciences for her research on how smallscale farmers could start up their own cheese-making businesses.

According to a statement by the university, she developed a cheese-making process for pecorino-style and ricotta cheeses, and then implemented it on four farms in the rural Eastern Cape. She decided on hard-pressed pecorino-style cheese that was aged for 60 days, and soft, fresh ricotta cheese that was a by-product.

“Both required relatively easy processing techniques that can potentially be duplicated by producers with limited resources.” However, she pointed out that the ideal would be to develop a local cheese that was tailored to local taste preferences.

Her research model included aspects such as the use of simple tools, cow breed choice, hygiene practices, and how to set up a reasonably cheap aging chamber for maturation purposes.

The model was tested by four small-scale farmers.

According to Nyamakwere, their herds predominantly consisted of Jersey and HolsteinFriesian cows, which on average produced at least 100ℓ of good-quality milk per day.

Nyamakwere explained that milk production in the province tended to be seasonal, and that farmers therefore did not usually deliver to larger producers.

“Such small-scale farmers usually sell their milk to neighbours, or use it for household purposes. Some make fermented milk products, or it simply goes to waste. Making cheese could become a way of ‘storing’ milk economically for these farmers. It is also another source of nutritious food that they can sell in their communities.”

The idea for Nyamakwere’s project, which was a first for South Africa, was based on the fact that in Europe there were still many small farms making traditional and artisanal cheeses with very simple tools.

Her project was undertaken with assistance from the Agricultural Research Council in the Eastern Cape, through funding from the National Research Foundation and in collaboration with the SU Department of Food Science and the Italian cheese company Formaggi della Famiglia Busti, based in Acciaiolo. She added that she hoped to extend the project even further to help small-scale farmers market their products. – Jeandré van der Walt

small farms in europe make cheese using simple tools