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Chapter 8 – Dairy-industry development programmes: Their role in food [...] 337
resources hampered operations. A USAID-funded Land O’Lakes-implemented
DIDP helped revive the industry in 2000.
In Uganda, the state Dairy Corporation began collecting and processing milk,
developing marketing infrastructure and servicing milk-producer cooperatives in
the 1960s. Some independent dairy cooperatives were also established then and at
least two are still in operation today in Mukono and Fort Portal. The industry was
jarred by civil disturbances in the 1970s, but recovered in the 1990s with the aid
of an FAO/UNDP/World Bank project that ran from 1986 to 1992 (FAO, 1993).
The Dairy Corporation was privatized in 2006 and producer groups function well
in the restructured industry, with much of the countries milk being processed and
marketed by the private sector. However, smallholders in Uganda are still without
influence on the dairy value chain after milk is collected at the primary cooperative
and they are fully dependant on the private dairy industry and their pricing policy.
To address this, a cooperative dairy union in the Mbarara region has started the construction
of one of the first large-scale cooperative processing plants in East Africa
and the private sector has also recently installed a milk drying plant in the same area.
Dairying is relatively less important in western Africa than in eastern and
southern Africa and milk producer organizations there are not as developed as in
eastern and southern Africa. However, dairy development projects supported by
FAO and others have helped to form successful producers’ groups in Benin, Chad,
Gambia, Ghana, Niger and Nigeria. Recently, the African Development Bank has
also significantly expanded its investments in the dairy sector in western Africa in
response to high demand and rising food prices.
Asia
Per capita consumption of milk and dairy products was traditionally low in Asia,
but total consumption is considerable and rising so fast that a new phrase – “the
myth of lactose-intolerance” – is heard, as school nutrition programmes cultivate
milk drinking “while promoting future demand” (Dugdill and Morgan, 2008).
However, consumption levels may not increase beyond current levels, given that
some people can consume only moderate amounts of dairy products or tend to go
for dairy products that are more easily digestible, such as yoghurts, probiotics, etc.
Time will tell if future adults choose liquid milk or fermented milk drinks.
Demand for dairy products in Asia has doubled since 1980, increasing import
dependency; the region imported were about 24 million tonnes of dairy products in
2007 at a cost of about US$14 billion. About 80 percent of milk in Asia is produced
by smallholders, and tens of millions of traders and entrepreneurs, small and large,
work in the informal sector. Producer organizations in India and Bangladesh are
outlined in Section 8.6.2. Government has provided the impetus for DIDPs in
China and Thailand. The situation in China – where investments in processing
are driving growth, not always to the advantage of smallholders – is analysed in
Box 8.5. In his address to the International Dairy Federation (IDF)/FAO World
Dairy Summit in Shanghai in 2006 the Chinese Premier said China’s “aim is ensure
that every child should have a glass of Asian milk every day”.
In Thailand, rapid growth in milk consumption is driven by a highly successful
school milk programme (see Chapter 7 for details). Begun in 1983 with support of
FAO and DANIDA, the programme was based on imported milk, but switched to