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

Chapter 9 – Human nutrition and dairy development: Trends and issues 363
holder production or failed to discourage the informal markets on which smallholders
depend (Chapter 8). Elsewhere, notably in Argentina and Brazil, policies have
encouraged private-sector investment in medium- to large-scale enterprises, and
in these countries smallholders have gradually moved away from dairying. Other
factors relate to the nature of dairying and dairy supply chains.
Factors that tend to accelerate scaling up include supply chains dominated by
large retailers and the expectations of consumers related to food safety, quality and
diversity. Both of these add to complexity and cost on farm. If a requirement is
introduced for on-farm milk cooling, for example, this is only cost-effective above
a certain volume of production. Chapter 8 cites the examples of Argentina, Brazil
and Chile, where many small-scale dairy producers went out of business when they
could not meet quality standards set by supermarkets and processors.
Factors that tend to slow the rate of scaling up include complex supply chains,
the use of local technology and processing methods to improve the shelf-life of
products, and local institutions such as producer groups and co-operatives that
allow farmers to achieve economy even at a small scale. Dairy groups have been
popular and in many places successful, as Chapter 8 describes. The labour market
also affects the attractiveness of small-scale dairying. Production, trading and
processing on a small scale are labour intensive – Chapter 8 describes the benefits
of small-scale dairy-industry development programmes in generating employment
for hundreds of thousands of people. Where other opportunities are scarce and
families assign a low value to their labour, small-scale dairying is attractive. In periurban
areas with other options, it may be less so. The ability to produce relatively
efficiently on a small or medium scale using family labour has contributed to the
relatively slow scaling up of dairy compared with other livestock sectors.
There is no indication that intensification and scaling up in the dairy sector will
speed up to compare with rates seen in the poultry sector unless there is a rapid
shift in government policy in South Asia and Africa towards favouring large-scale
dairy production. This means that smallholder production in the dairy sector may
be more sustainable than in other livestock sectors.
Scaling up is likely to have different consequences in urban and rural settings.
For rural producer-consumers of dairy products, scaling up has the potential to
remove a steady source of income and an immediate source of food. Dairy-industry
development has been seen by the international community as a good thing for
smallholder farmers, primarily because of its potential to generate income on a daily
basis. There can also be positive impacts on nutrition in farm families if women
control the use of milk or the money from its sale.
Although Chapter 7 points out that the evidence linking dairy-industry development
or other dairy programmes with nutritional impact is scarce, various studies
have indicated that attention to gender issues, good education on nutrition as well
as dairy production, and the use of goats or sheep in addition to cattle for dairy
production have all improved nutrition in smallholder dairy households. These
households are not, it must be admitted, the poorest of the poor – poor families
do not normally keep dairy cattle although they may keep dairy goats by grazing
them on common land. Many other people who do not own animals but take part
in managing, trading and processing them can also improve their livelihoods and, it
is assumed, the nutrition of their families from small-scale dairying.