June 29, 2010

Tetra Pak, HFL to form dairy hub

 

Tetra Pak and Haleeb Foods Limited (HFL) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a dairy hub in Pakistan's District Okara, that will lead to rural development and poverty alleviation for small farm holders by enhancing their livestock business.

Managing director Tetra Pak Pakistan, Azhar Ali Syed said, "In collaboration with our customers, Tetra Pak already has four established community dairy hubs that directly or indirectly benefit about 6,000 small holders and dairy farmers and contribute in increasing productivity of about 90,000 animals.

Managing director HFL, Imran Amjad said, "Through this Dairy Hub project, we will be able to set up milk collection centres at central and convenient locations for small farmers, so that a quality supply chain of milk is ensured. This will ultimately allow us to deliver better quality finished goods." Haleeb Dairy Hub will also provide similar benefits by improving the supply and quality of milk, he added.

Farmers will be trained on farm management practices such as animal husbandry, feeding, hygiene and vaccination. It will also involve setting up performance indicators to measure the success of how productivity of animals has improved over time.

Dairy farming in Pakistan is characterised by fragmented, smallholder farmers who operate at subsistence level and are unable to get the commercial benefit out of the activity. Pakistan is the third largest milk producer in the world with an average annual production of 1300 litres of cow milk but there still is a large room for improvement, which can be seen by a comparison with the US that has an average annual production of about 9000 litres.

This Dairy Hub initiative will help narrow this gap as it aims to educate farmers in best dairy practices by providing them with facilities for capacity building through simplified trainings, agri-services, cooling and testing equipment. This will create unity among community smallholders to supply their milk and link them with the formal sector and adopt dairy farming as a full time business.