Milk-and-Dairy-Products-in-Human-Nutrition-FAO

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Milk and dairy products in human nutrition
Box 8.4 (continued)
The school lunch campaign is supported by: (i) educational posters for classrooms;
(ii) milk packets with simple nutrition messages printed on the back; and (iii) a roadshow
that takes awareness-raising and nutrition messages out to families in remote
areas.
One of the schools in the scheme, Bayenlig Primary School, is located in a very
remote area of the Gobi Desert without electricity. Most of the children are weekly
borders and travel to and from school by camel. The school lunch scheme is operated
by the Bayenlig Camel Herder Group, which provides a variety of conserved and nutritious
camel milk products for the children.
The school lunch scheme now covers about 200 000 children across the country.
The scheme is linked to the generic Mongolia milk advertising and education campaign
– the first generic nutrition awareness campaign in Mongolia. In addition to
supplying regular nutrition, the scheme also show-cases Mongolian milk and dairy
products to children (tomorrow’s customers) and their parents. In addition to the
above-mentioned roadshow, the integrated campaign also includes: (i) a generic
brand and logo to differentiate Mongolian milk from imports; (ii) a generic slogan,
“Mongolian milk for health and wealth”; (iii) TV and movie-theatre commercials;
(iv) a full-length feature movie aimed at young audiences in which a university student
who drinks milk gets his girl; (v) press conferences, newspaper adverts and interviews;
and (vi) billboards.
1 Stunting is usually associated with a series of nutritional deficits during pregnancy and the first two years of life.
Source: Dugdill and Ser-Od, 2006; Dugdill and Morgan, 2008; FAO, 2008.
In conclusion there is an urgent need to consider nutrition at the programme
design stage, and to develop indicators of nutritional status to monitor baseline data
on nutrition. See Box 8.4 and Chapters 4, 7 and 9 for more on nutrition.
8.6 Market intermediaries and consumers
Marketing intermediaries cover all steps between primary production and consumer
sales. They play important roles in linking rural markets to urban outlets. Marketing
strategies must address all links in the value chain from production to consumption
and consider the nature of the product, size of the market, distance between production
site and the market and transport and communications infrastructure. For
fresh products, organization of transport, quality control and loss minimization are
critical. Appropriate technologies may increase shelf-life and extend the geographical
range of markets. In developing countries, intermediaries market milk and dairy
products and meet at least some consumer demands. Informal structures dominate
in many cases. While these provide opportunities for local employment, there are
often concerns about the composition, safety and quality of milk.