Cold Storage Facilities For Small-Scale Dairy Farmers
ETHIOPIA - Dairy farmers with just a few cows, located in the more remote areas, have difficulties accessing cold storage facilities.
24 May 2011
1 minute read
Partly because of that, milk quality is below health and safety standards and cannot be sold on high-value markets. A new project, financed by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, aims to make cold storage facilities appropriate, accessible, available and affordable for these smallholders.
A consortium of the Dutch BoP Innovation Center, LEI and SNV Ethiopia will identify ways to unlock private investments and co-innovate low-cost cold storage technologies. Activities in the first half of 2011 will define the ‘plausible promise’ of cooling services for low-income farmers in detail. It will answer the following questions:
- Is access to cooling indeed a critical factor to create added value for Ethiopian low-income dairy farmers? If so, then what is the cooling service package that farmers can afford?
- Is there an (incipient) interest from larger private players to co-invest and -innovate in cooling services or in other products that would help low-income farmers to sell on high-value markets?
- What specific business models can be identified for the further development?
The project will work in a close collaboration with the Marked-Linked Innovation programme for Dairy Development In Ethiopian highlands (MIDD).
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