Cover image courtesy of Heifer International
–by Cassandra Exum–
Abstract
The East African Dairy Development (EADD) project is implemented through a consortium of five organizations including Heifer International (lead), TechnoServe, the International Livestock Research Institute, African Breeders Total Cattle Management and the World Agroforestry Center; EADD works to enhance dairy production and market access for smallholder farmers in East Africa.[1] While the goal is admirable and has shown quantitative advancements within the dairy industry, improvements must still be made to increase the inclusivity, effectiveness, and growth of the project.
Background: Heifer International & EADD
What is Heifer International?
Dan West, founder of Heifer International, was driven by the “teach a man to fish” philosophy as an aid worker during the Spanish Civil War. He was to provide a rationed cup of milk to refugees, but he soon realized that the modest cup of milk was insufficient and thought: What if they had not a cup, but a cow?[2] This philosophy inspired the creation of Heifer International to work to end world hunger and poverty. Heifer works to empower families through three practices. The first practice in empowering families is to train people in sustainable farming. Heifer teaches people around the world how to use environmentally-friendly farming methods, create and operate businesses, and support their communities with their knowledge. The second mechanism used in empowering families is helping farmers gain access to the market by making large-scale improvements to existing economic systems to benefit farmers. And finally, Heifer works to empower women by helping women develop leadership skills so that they can have access to greater opportunities such as education and entrepreneurship.
What is the East Africa Dairy Development?
Heifer is presently working in nine countries within Africa including Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The East Africa Dairy Development (EADD) initiative, can be found in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. The mission for this initiative, per the Heifer International website, is “improving livelihoods for 1 million farmers in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania through dairy.”[3] The EADD program is designed to boost the milk yields and incomes of small-scale farmers in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania so that they can lift their communities out of hunger and poverty. The first phase of the EADD began in 2008 with the goal of doubling dairy-derived income among 179,000 smallholder farms by 2017. The strategy targeted farmers living on small 1-5 acre plots and sought to achieve the goal by increasing ownership of cross-bred cows, increasing the amount of milk their cows produce and strengthening the farmer’s relationship with the formal markets so that they can increase milk sales.[4] The project is led by Heifer International, but their consortium partners are TechnoServe, the International Livestock Research Institute, African Breeders Total Cattle Management and the World Agroforestry Center.[5]
What Called for EADD?
Kenya’s Central and Rift valley regions produce the highest yields of milk in the country. According to the Heifer website, many small farmers in the region have not known if or when they could sell their milk, or for what price.[6] Heifer claims that they also lacked the technology, training and market access to develop a strong infrastructure and thus lacked no reliable system for selling, preserving or collecting milk. The absence of a healthy dairy market resulted in no income, which resulted in little to no access to basic needs like food or shelter, let alone education or health care. The farmers faced challenges including low milk volumes, poor quality of dairy inputs and limited access to markets due to a substandard roadway system.
Heifer’s Solution
In response to the problematic dairy farming, Heifer began Phase I of EADD. Phase I implemented the “hub model.” Through this model, smallholder dairy farmers buy shares in a milk-chilling hub through a regional business association. The hub then functions as an agribusiness center where they sell dependable, quality supply of milk to dairy processors and receive income in return. Heifer states that the farmers also gain access to banks and credit as well as private goods and services that they need to sustain and grow their dairy businesses.[7] The model works with several villages in an area with approximately 800 to 1,000 smallholder farmers that work in close cooperation with dedicated dairy processors. Heifer states that this creates economies of scale focused on nutrition, animal health, training and income.[8]
The Results of Phase I of EADD
Per the Heifer website, from 2008-2013, EADD provided extensive training on dairy husbandry, business practices and operation and marketing of dairy products to 179,000 farming families. Heifer and its partners also developed 27 milk collection hubs, strengthened 10 existing hubs and formed 68 farmer business associations to manage the plants.[9] Heifer claims that since then, EADD has grown to be one of the leading market-oriented development initiatives in eastern Africa. By the end of the initial five-year period, the project earned $131 million in milk sales by farmers, sold 356 million liters of milk and saved $11 million by farmers by 2013.[10] According to the 2011 FAO Dairy Development in Kenya report, the livestock industry accounts for 10 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product, and Heifer claims that the project immensely contributed to this revival.[11] The report also states that Kenya’s annual milk production from all dairy species is about three billion liters, and for every 1000 liters handled, about 40,000 jobs are created.[12] Overall, Phase I of EADD appears to have boosted the economy.
The Goals for Phase II of EADD
The second phase of EADD is envisioned to provide an additional 136,000 smallholder farm families the opportunities to create financial independence and social equality. Heifer’s website claims that Phase II has refined and improved the hub approach to focus on building social capital and actively pursue partnerships with and investments from local processors and other private sector players.[13] The goal of Phase II is to increase hub sustainability so that other public and private entities are primed to scale up this approach. To track the success of the program, EADD has implemented four quantitative outcomes to bring the additional 136,000 farmer families into economic stability. The first measurable outcome is farmer sustainability. EADD tracks the net dairy income per household to ensure that income is doubling by increasing milk production to a minimum of six liters per day. The second measurable outcome is gender equality in dairy farming. According to Heifer, women are essential to the project’s success through increasing savings to contribute to household well-being. Heifer has created a goal of a 30 percent increase in women actively supplying milk at the hub level and 30 percent increase in women with access to and control over productive assets. Hub sustainability is the third measurable element in quantitatively tracking the success of EADD. All hubs will be placed on a path to sustainability to create profitable business and enhance services and tools so that they are both economically and socially viable for the long-term. The final measurable outcome is replication. In order for the model to prove successful, it must be able to be replicated and scaled within and outside the project, countries and region in order to make an impact.
Analysis: Room for Improvement
Desire and Means to Learn
Volunteer farmer trainers are initially trained in feed and feeding systems on an intensive, two-day course, and they then train fellow farmers in their immediate community.[14] It is beneficial for the trainers to educate the other members of their dairy group as the hub model relies on a team effort mentality. The training by the farmers typically includes the growing of livestock feed crops and feed conservation techniques such as silage making, hay baling and management of crop residues. Trainers use demonstration plots on their own land, but on average, each volunteer farmer trainer also reaches five villages outside of their own, travelling mostly on foot and covering up to 4 miles a day.[15] The community determines who is selected as a volunteer farmer, but also is faced with the input of agriculturalists from the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF). In order to be a volunteer farmer trainer, one must be able to read and write, able to interpret extension material to farmers, be a member in a farmer organization or cooperative society working with the EADD Project, be a dairy farmer, have the willingness, interest and ability to disseminate new innovations and knowledge to others without pay, be a resident in the community and be willing to set aside land for setting up demonstrations.[16] Farmer trainers have found they can earn income from selling planting materials or providing training services –for a fee– to people from outside their immediate community.[17] Farmers were also motivated to become trainers by altruism, as well as the desire to gain knowledge and skills, social benefits, and project benefits. Community-based training is not always effective, however. For example, low population areas often suffer from sedentary communities that do not travel outside of their area and do not have means of transportation to travel to and from the trainer’s farm. While the retention rate for volunteer farmer trainers has held a staggering 80 percent, the sustainability of the information-sharing aspect of the program also heavily relies on those being trained.
The importance of aid recipients actually wanting to receive aid is evident in Kenda Mutongi’s Worries of the Heart. According to Mutongi “[the recipients] were much more interested in the practical advantages of having their diseases healed and their bodies nourished with food than in the gospel or in manual work.”[18] Mutongi continues by stating that “unfortunately for the young American evangelists, the Maragoli visited because they needed real food, not the metaphorical ‘loaves and fishes’ promised by the scriptures.”[19] Whereas the gift of Christianity was not desired by the Maragoli, the gift of dairy is not always desirable or practical for communities. The volunteer farmer trainers mirror evangelists in that they seek to provide knowledge, yet it is not always desired by the recipients.
The Decision-Makers
EADD’s coordination structure includes three country project teams, a Regional Team and a Project Steering Committee.[20] Each of these teams has representation by multiple partners. However, overall responsibility for project management lies with the EADD Steering Committee, which is led by Heifer International and includes one senior representative of ILRI, Techno Serve and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.[21] This committee only meets twice annually and reviews financial and project progress reports and provides strategic leadership and guidance to the project. Therefore, many of the decisions made regarding Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda are not made by locals. The input of the target beneficiary population is not represented within the Steering Committee. Locals should have seats on the Steering Committee as “a project that alienates the population from the Council will affect poor people’s long term welfare differently from one that builds the relationship.”[22]
The desires of the locals have long been shut out. The group providing the aid often makes the calls, as evident in China Scherz’s novel Having People, Having Heart; Charity, Sustainable Development, and Problems of Dependence in Central Uganda. In this novel, locals requested monetary support to assist in paying school fees and school uniforms.[23] Their requests were not heard, however, and instead they received after-school problems to fight attendance issues.
Lack of Access to Physical Goods/Teaching Model
TechnoServe is responsible for leading market access activities. The International Livestock Research Institute provides “knowledge based learning activities.”[24] African Breeders Total Cattle Management supplies assistance related to livestock breeding for increased dairy productivity, and World Agroforesty Center provides farmer training, including the production and processing of improved feeds and establishment of feed demonstration plots. And finally, Heifer International’s primary role is to provide financial and program guidance as required for the overall coordination of the project partners. While East Africa Dairy Development provides a “teaching” method to farmers in the project, it does not supply the physical goods such as animals, seed or farming tools to local farmers. EADD does provide the initial dairy hubs; instead, farmers had to buy in with shares (nor are they provided with loans if they cannot afford to buy in).
Additionally, dairy processing at an industrial scale is limited to where equipment is donated because “dairy processing machinery is imported mainly from outside the African continent,” which results in high shipping costs in addition to the cost of the premium of the machinery.[25] While one farming family may own a cow, it may lack the financial capabilities to provide it seed. On the other hand, a family may only be able to afford seed, but not a cow. “A notable factor (in explaining a productivity gap) is the lack of access to feed”.[26] Without access to physical goods, the lessons taught by EADD become useless knowledge. Once the organization has vacated the area, it will be the responsibility of the community to remain knowledgeable on the maintenance and operation of the machinery. This poses problems as there are also not many local technicians in an industry that is still developing, nor are there many stores selling affordable parts–parts that require regular replacing due to simple wear and tear. In addition to neglecting the need for physical goods, the teaching model also belittles the “student.” According to Adrien Edwards, by providing training, “you’re implying ‘you don’t know how to do this; I’ll help you out.’”[27] It would be most beneficial to offer loans so that farming families who want to join can have the option, but others can use the funds to do what they know is best for them.
Conclusion
Overall, the East Africa Dairy Development initiative in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania has increased dairy production within the region. The goal of the program to lift communities out of poverty has had measurable success; however, there is room for improvement in a few ways. Families that do not currently own the physical goods to become farmers are left behind as donations for Phase II support “collection hubs with refrigerated chilling stations to keep milk from spoiling; efficient and affordable milk transport between farms and hubs; and bottling, packaging and delivery systems to bring milk to markets and customers on a reliable basis.” Additionally, those receiving the aid also must have the capability and desire to travel to the trainer’s farms in order for the training to be effective. Finally, the locals’ voices should be represented through designated seats on the Steering Committee. While Heifer International, TechnoServe, International Livestock Research, Breeders Total Cattle Management, and World Agroforestry Center have had success, there are areas that require further work.
This post may have been edited by admin for clarity and length.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
“East Africa Dairy Development | Heifer International | Charity Ending Hunger And Poverty.” Our Work | Heifer International | Charity Ending Hunger And Poverty. Accessed August 26, 2018. https://www.heifer.org/ending-hunger/our-work/programs/eadd/index.html.
“East Africa Dairy Development Project Evaluation.” Firetail Limited. February 2013. Accessed August 24, 2018. https://cgspace.cgiar.org/bitstream/handle/10568/79437/EADD%20FINAL%20REPORT.pdf?sequence=1&i.
“EAST AFRICA DAIRY DEVELOPMENT – EADD II PROGRAM, TANZANIA.” TechnoServe. Accessed August 25, 2018. http://www.technoserve.org/files/downloads/TOR_Tanzania-EADDII.pdf.
Muriuki, H. G. “Dairy Development in Kenya.” Food and Agriculture Organization. 2011. Accessed August 25, 2018. http://www.fao.org/3/a-al745e.pdf.
Secondary Sources
Bingi, Susan, and Fabien Tondel. “Recent Developments in the Dairy Sector in Eastern Africa.” European Centre for Development Policy Management. September 2015. Accessed August 25, 2018. https://ecdpm.org/wp-content/uploads/BN-on-dairy-sector-in-EA_final1.pdf.
Collier, Christopher. “NGOs, the Poor and Local Governments.” The Robinson Rojas Archive. 1996. Accessed August 25, 2018. http://ss.rrojasdatabank.info/eade115-123.pdf.
Kiptot, Evelyne, and Steven Franzel. “Voluntarism as an Investment in Human, Social and Financial Capital: Evidence from a Farmer-to-farmer Extension Program in Kenya.” Springer Science and Business. August 6, 2013. Accessed August 24, 2018. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs10460-013-9463-5.pdf.
Michael, N.i. Lokuruka. “Overview of Dairy Processing and Marketing in East African Dairy Value Chains: Opportunities and Challenges.” African Journal of Food Science 10, no. 11 (2016): 254-62. doi:10.5897/ajfs2016.1465.
Vark, Caspar Van. “Milking It: How Farmers in East Africa Are Earning More by Learning More.” The Guardian. August 05, 2014. Accessed August 26, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2014/aug/05/kenya-uganda-rwanda-dairy-farming-training.
Other
“East Africa Dairy Development Project.” Http://www.nestle-ea.com. Accessed August 26, 2018. https://www.nestle-ea.com/en/csv/rural%20development%20and%20responsible%20sourcing/east%20africa%20dairy%20project/home.
Knowledge@Wharton, Feb 16 2015 North. “The One-for-one Business Model: Avoiding Unintended Consequences.” Accessed August 25, 2018. http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/one-one-business-model-social-impact-avoiding-unintended-consequences/.
Mutongi, Kenda. Worries of the Heart Widows, Family, and Community in Kenya. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
Scherz, China. Having People, Having Heart: Charity, Sustainable Development, and Problems of Dependence in Central Uganda. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014.
[1] “EAST AFRICA DAIRY DEVELOPMENT – EADD II PROGRAM, TANZANIA.” TechnoServe.
[2] “East Africa Dairy Development | Heifer International | Charity Ending Hunger And Poverty.” Our Work | Heifer International.
[3] “East Africa Dairy Development | Heifer International | Charity Ending Hunger And Poverty.” Our Work | Heifer International.
[4] “East Africa Dairy Development | Heifer International | Charity Ending Hunger And Poverty.” Our Work | Heifer International.
[5] “East Africa Dairy Development Project Evaluation.” Firetail Limited.
[6] “East Africa Dairy Development | Heifer International | Charity Ending Hunger And Poverty.” Our Work | Heifer International.
[7] “East Africa Dairy Development | Heifer International | Charity Ending Hunger And Poverty.” Our Work | Heifer International.
[8] “East Africa Dairy Development | Heifer International | Charity Ending Hunger And Poverty.” Our Work | Heifer International.
[9] “East Africa Dairy Development | Heifer International | Charity Ending Hunger And Poverty.” Our Work | Heifer International.
[10] “East Africa Dairy Development | Heifer International | Charity Ending Hunger And Poverty.” Our Work | Heifer International.
[11] Muriuki, H. G. “Dairy Development in Kenya.” Food and Agriculture Organization.
[12] Muriuki, H. G. “Dairy Development in Kenya.” Food and Agriculture Organization.
[13] “East Africa Dairy Development | Heifer International | Charity Ending Hunger And Poverty.” Our Work | Heifer International.
[14] Kiptot, Evelyne, and Steven Franzel. “Voluntarism as an Investment in Human, Social and Financial Capital: Evidence from a Farmer-to-farmer Extension Program in Kenya.”
[15] Kiptot, Evelyne, and Steven Franzel. “Voluntarism as an Investment in Human, Social and Financial Capital: Evidence from a Farmer-to-farmer Extension Program in Kenya.”
[16] Kiptot, Evelyne, and Steven Franzel. “Voluntarism as an Investment in Human, Social and Financial Capital: Evidence from a Farmer-to-farmer Extension Program in Kenya.”
[17] Vark, Caspar Van. “Milking It: How Farmers in East Africa Are Earning More by Learning More.”
[18] Mutongi, Kenda. Worries of the Heart Widows, Family, and Community in Kenya, 28.
[19] Mutongi, Kenda. Worries of the Heart Widows, Family, and Community in Kenya, 29.
[20] “East Africa Dairy Development Project Evaluation.” Firetail Limited.
[21] “East Africa Dairy Development Project Evaluation.” Firetail Limited.
[22] Collier, Christopher. “NGOs, the Poor and Local Governments,” 122.
[23] Scherz, China. Having People, Having Heart: Charity, Sustainable Development, and Problems of Dependence in Central Uganda.
[24] “East Africa Dairy Development Project Evaluation.” Firetail Limited.
[25] Michael, N.i. Lokuruka. “Overview of Dairy Processing and Marketing in East African Dairy Value Chains: Opportunities and Challenges,” 258.
[26] Bingi, Susan, and Fabien Tondel. “Recent Developments in the Dairy Sector in Eastern Africa,” 6.
[27] Knowledge@Wharton, Feb 16 2015 North. “The One-for-one Business Model: Avoiding Unintended Consequences.”
