Ethiopian Cooperatives Fight Food Insecurity with Business Investments
Co-op Members, Local Consumers to Benefit from New Feed and Dairy Plants
Ethiopia has long fought the twin challenges of hunger and food insecurity. An active participant in this fight, ACDI/VOCA partnered with the Selale Dairy Producers Cooperative Union in 2010 to make investments in local agricultural production to fill market gaps and improve local food quality and availability.
Already, this partnership has yielded fruit: ACDI/VOCA and the union—comprising 27 cooperative associations with members from 2,000 households—inaugurated a major animal feed-processing plant and also laid the cornerstone for a dairy-processing plant on February 23, 2011.
Both the feed- and dairy-processing plants will help improve food security for poorer households and drive local economic growth as part of ACDI/VOCA’s larger development activities in Ethiopia.
Local Farmers to Benefit from Feed Mill
A major challenge to the development of Ethiopia’s livestock sector has been a lack of manufactured animal feed. The union’s new feed mill—built at a cost of approximately 500,000 birr (approximately $30,000) for equipment, land and building—will overcome this challenge and boost the local economy.
“The equipment that the union is using will produce up to 2,000 metric tons of feed per year,” says ACDI/VOCA-Ethiopia Chief of Party John “Bick” Riley at the feed mill launch.
“It is a good beginning,” Riley adds. “Through the use of this feed, members of the union will have safe feed, with a significant reduction of nutritional problems as well as diseases and contamination.”
Good quality animal feed is crucial for animal weight gain and increased dairy production. In Ethiopia, where the livestock population may be the largest in Africa, ACDI/VOCA’s work in feed development is fundamental.
Dairy-Processing Plant to Create Jobs, Encourage Fair Prices
During the same day of the feed mill launch, the Selale Union laid the cornerstone for a new dairy-processing plant that will cost 22.3 million Ethiopian birr (approximately $1.34 million).
Union General Manager Hailu Tadesse says the plant will be finalized within a year, and he expects it will create seasonal and permanent job opportunities for more than 40 people.
The plant will help farmers earn a fair price for their dairy products as well as improve cooperatives’ productivity.
Previously, intermediates would pay the farmers low prices for the milk and then more than double the price for consumers.
The Selale Dairy Producers Cooperative Union was established in 2001 and receives support from ACDI/VOCA's Feed Enhancement for Ethiopian Development (FEED) project, which is funded by USDA. FEED provided technical assistance and in-kind contributions of approximately 150,000 birr in the form of feed-milling equipment and related materials.
Flickr Album: See more photos from the feed mill event opening.
Pictured at top left: Ribbon cutting at the opening of the new Selale Dairy Producers Cooperative Union feed mill by General Director of the Federal Cooperative Agency Ato Yaregal Aysheshim (center) and USDA Agriculture Counselor Merritt Chesley of the U.S. Embassy (far right).
