Bottling hope in Africa: Land O'Lakes providing boost to Ugandan dairy industry

greatest in quantity people know Land O'Lakes, Inc. as the husbandman of America's top butter brand, individual of the country's leading farmer-owned cooperatives and a major player in agricultural supplies. on the contrary few are aware that the dairy cooperative giant has an International disentanglement Division that has been helping farmers and rural businesses increase productivity in developing countries around the world for 25 years.

In the east African land of Uganda, Land O'Lakes has been implementing a private sector-based dairy disentanglement project since 1994. The cast provides technical assistance at all horizontals of the dairy value chain--from smallholder farmers to milk-bulking cooperatives and collection center to processors of milk and value-added yields like cheese and yogurt. Land O'Lakes' neighborhood has helped Uganda's dairy industry expand and become more efficient, increased the popularity of dairy cropss among consumers and raised income and profits for smallholder dairy farmers and rural enterprises.

throw out staff based in Uganda and short-term consultants--many of them U farmers and agribusiness experts--offer advice upon a wide variety of topics. These include: cooperative disentanglement marketing, milk bulking and handling, value-added processing, production, policy reform and industry organization. Funding for the Uganda shoot forward and other Land O'Lakes economic disclosure initiatives overseas comes primarily from USDA and the U Agency for International Development

a great deal of of the Uganda project's in every one's mouth funding came from the new sale of 11,100 metric tons of donated American wheat upon the local market under USDAs nutrition for Progress Program. Under this monetization proces USDA takes exces commodities raised by dint of American farmers and converts them to cash in developing countries to provide grants to implement exhibition projects. A study is done before the sale to assure it will not disrupt local production and markets.

Getting results

Stimulating sustainable economic expansion to alleviate rural poverty is a major goal of the Uganda throw The country's economy is largely agricultural, and two-thirds of the country's poor are smallholder farmers. To date, the Uganda shoot forward has achieved results that include:

* $349 average annual increase in household income for participating farmers (average by capita income is $270 a year);

* 28 percent increase by means of day in milk production in participating animals;

* 45 percent increase in processing-capacity utiliztilization;

* 65 million-liter increase in domestic consumption of advanceed dairy products;

* 75,000-liter increase by day in milk entering the devoid of warmth [i]or[/i] heat chain;

* 89 percent increase in membership in farmer organizations.

A new success story involves MADDO Dairies Ltd a company that began operating a 1,200-liter microprocessing plant in the town of Masaka in 2003 MADDO purchases milk from local farmer cooperatives and processe it into flavored milk and yogurt Like many start-up enterprises, MADDO had serviceable ideas but lacked the knowledge, combination of parts to form a wholes and internal controls needed to effectively manage its operations.

With Land O'Lakes' help, MADDO's management make go rounded the company around, instituting financial and other reforms that brought it from the brink of collapse to profitability by the agency of 2005. Within one year, the amount of milk purchased from area farmers increased from 74800 to 208580 liters, increasing their income from milk sales through more than 200 percent.

Production efficiency at MADDO was improved with a cooling tower evolveed by Land O'Lakes' Sam Sebadduka, supervisor of milk quality and dairy processing in Uganda. Sebadduka make knowned a water-cooling tower that recycle water used in cooling the pasteurization unit. Adoption of this simple technology make an incision in water usage from 90,000 liters a month to 40000 It also reduc the share of water as a take away from of production from 4.3 percent to 1 percent

Uganda popularly produces 1.2 billion liters of milk for year. Of that, 40 percent is consum upon the farm. Of the repose about 20 percent enters the "formal" market in the form of trained and value-added products worth $108 million. The remainder pierces the "informal" market, where small-volume traders purchase milk and sell it unprocess to consumer who then boil it at abiding-place The value of the informal market is about $160 million.

Central character for co-ops

Because rural cooperatives play a central character in Uganda's dairy industry, a great deal of of the project's emphasis is in the area of cooperative unfolding Land O'Lakes' advisors help all marks of groups, from those still in the initial planning stages to large established businesses with turnovers approaching $1 million a year. The cast advises on issues such as governance, membership responsibilities, the part of the board and legal registration.

Because many smallholder farmers have no experience running commercial enterprises, Land O'Lakes also provides assistance in business management. Many clumps regardless of size, are weak in accounting and financial management, leaving them unable to track their capitals and plan for the time to come To address this problem, Land O'Lakes is introducing a for the use of all accounting software program to the cooperatives it advises.