Over the past few months we updated you on our project in Mongolia. This project was successfully concluded last month! Read about it here:
To strengthen the dairy sector, a large global bank selected a consortium of Dutch and Mongolian companies. This consortium, lead by Bles Dairies’ consultancy division The Friesian, prepared a working plan for providing practical on-farm training and for developing manuals for commercial dairy farmers in Mongolia.
Situation in Mongolia
Despite having the potential to become a dairy exporter, Mongolia is a net importer due to low efficiency of milk production and lack of technical expertise. With only eight modern dairy farms producing good-quality raw milk, the number of dairy farms will need to increase more than a hundred-fold soon to meet the increasing demand for milk. There is a lack of knowledge about modern approaches to milk production and handling as well as a lack of capacity. Thus, processors buy raw milk without major considerations around quality if suppliers can offer significant volumes. This discourages farmers from investing in higher quality production. This study aimed to increase capacity of farmers to produce more milk of higher quality, by transferring the know-how on modern approaches to milk production, handling, feeding, fodder production, cow health, food safety, hygiene, reproduction, as well as farm management and animal welfare.
Output
The Friesian set up a training program to support their daily practices and management decisions. We provided in total 4 weeks of training to the participating farmers in Mongolia. Besides we developed practical, illustrated manual and handouts on milk production, including productivity, efficiency, food safety and animal welfare in English and Mongolian. In the explanations, the Mongolian circumstances were considered as much as possible: cold winters and relatively little rainfall. Another component was a herd management software system, which we delivered to 3 selected farms for a trial period of 12 months.
The beneficiaries of the assignment were the local dairy producers, processors, consumers and traders active in the sector. Moreover, the training materials developed through this project also benefit other players in the dairy market in Mongolia.
Continuation
All in all this project had very positive results. The farmers were eager to learn and showed interest for milking during the winter, in which lies one of the main issues in the Mongolian dairy sector. They also would like to learn more about animal health topics. Because of the growing interest, this project will most likely have a follow up.
Our consultancy company The Friesian organizes trainings as part of their consultancy activities. More frequently we organize trainings via Dairy Training Centre (DTC). We represent this practical training centre in a lot of countries world wide. DTC formerly known as PTC+ Oenkerk, conducts international training programs, alongside the implementation of training projects all over the world. Many students from all over the world have already been trained, on and off site. For further information visit: www.dairytrainingcentre.com.
