2010 Progress Report: Dairy Productivity for Farm Households in Bangladesh

Grantee: CARE

August 10, 2010

This grant encountered some setbacks in 2009, but still made substantial progress on two of its key milestones. We believe the project is on track to meet its goals six months to a year later than planned.

Livestock health workers: CARE deployed 120 paravets, or community veterinary health workers, in 2009, meeting its goal for the year. The paravets’ reputation for high quality training and service has put them in high demand among farmers, helping to increase their average monthly income from $66 to $123. CARE still struggles to recruit women paravets, even though 75 percent of their target dairy farmers are women. In an initial assessment, CARE found that farmers not only prefer male paravets, but women have a hard time pursuing this enterprise due to responsibilities at home and challenges traveling long distances.

Informal markets: A sudden drop in the price of imported powdered milk in 2009 decreased demand for fresh milk in Bangladesh, making it difficult for the project’s farmers to sell their milk to chilling centers. As a result, CARE fell short of its goal of linking 20,000 dairy farmers to chilling centers in 2009. To offset the unexpected weakness in the commercial milk market, it is currently developing business models to link farmers to the informal milk market. It is developing milk bars to promote milk collection from farmer groups, exploring alternative milk packaging, and promoting milk consumption. As a result of these efforts, 10,058 project farmers sold through informal markets in 2009.

Artificial insemination research: The project has struggled to breed cows that will produce a higher volume of milk. To address this problem, the project convened an advisory panel to support research in animal genetics and artificial insemination within Bangladesh. The panel will make recommendations on delivering the most appropriate semen to smallholders.

Learn more about this grant to CARE.

Goal: To help 35,000 households in Bangladesh double their dairy-related incomes by increasing the amount of milk their cows produce and developing systems for collecting and transporting surplus milk so they can sell more of it in informal markets.

Selected Objectives:

Number of Farmers Linked to Chilling Centers

Objective: Improve the systems for collecting and storing milk in remote areas of Bangladesh by establishing chilling plants and a network of house-to-house milk collectors.

Target: 17 chilling facilities identified and linked to 35,000 farmers.

Objective: Form groups of farmers that can receive training in animal husbandry and bargain collectively to buy inputs, such as better feed, to increase the amount and quality of the milk their cows produce.

Target: 35,000 farmers organized into groups by 2011.

Number of Farmers Using Artificial Insemination Services

Objective: Provide dairy farmers with access to artificial insemination services that will result in cows with the ability to produce much higher volumes of milk than local cows, significantly boosting income.

Target: 12,000 dairy farmers who use quality artificial insemination services.

Objective: Deploy paravets, or community veterinary health workers, to help farmers manage their farms, keep their cows healthy, and improve the quality of their milk.

Target: 165 paravets trained, at least 50 percent of whom are women.