The spirit of Chiang Mai Declaration “A glass of Asian Milk a day for Every Asian Child” came

alive during the World Milk Day and World School Milk Day celebrations in the three participat-

ing SDDP countries—Thailand, Myanmar and Bangladesh. National governments and project part-

ners joined hands with FAO to raise awareness of about nutritional qualities of fresh milk and the

importance of smallholder dairy development in supporting rural incomes . The Smallholder

Dairy Development Program (SDDP) is being implemented in these countries with financial sup-

port from the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC), FAO, and Animal Production and Health

Commission for Asia and the Pacific (APHCA). A number of entertainment and educational ac-

tivities were organized on the occasions in all three countries and the dairy companies and pro-

ducer organizations distributed free milk to thousands of children and participants. These received

very high level participation from all partners and FAO country and regional offices. SDDP team

thanks all the well wishers for their continued encouragement, participation and active support.

World Milk Day and World School Milk Day Celebrations in SDDP Countries

SD

DP S

pla

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Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific

Bangkok, Thailand

U Ohn Myint, Minister of Livestock and Fisheries

participates in the World School Milk Day celebra-

tions in Nay Pyi Taw.

Dominique Burgeon, FAO Representative in Bangla-

desh and Md. Ashraf Ali, Director General, Depart-

ment of Livestock Services, on the occasion of WMD

celebrations in Dhaka

Mr. Hiroyuki Konuma, Assistant Director General and Regional Represen-

tative, FAO, Director General and Deputy Director General, Department

of Livestock Development (DLD Dairy Promotion Organization of Thai-

land, on the occasion of WMD Celebrations in Bangkok

See more pictures

on pages 4-6

In our previous issue of SDDP Splash, we reported on

the review of school milk activities in Bangladesh and

Thailand. The lessons from this review were discussed in

a series of consultations and brainstorm meetings in

Bangladesh and Myanmar. The meetings were attended

by a wide range of stakeholders and well wishers. Ideas

flew, excitement grew and now the fire is catching on.

Rabobank recently announced its intention to support a

school milk pilot in Sathkira district in Southern Bangla-

desh. Milk vita—the largest milk cooperative in Bangla-

desh—has also agreed to join the initiative. This will be

in addition to the school milk pilot originally planned

under the SDDP activities. Final details of these pilots—

targeting between 3500 and 4000 children—are being

worked out and are likely to be in operation in January

2013. We will keep you updated on the progress.

Myanmar has also shown remarkable resolve and results

in putting this idea into action. World School Milk day

was celebrated in Nay Pi Taw, Yangon, and Mandalay

with full gusto and with very high level participation by

government and non-government partners and FAO

representation. About 30000 children received milk do-

nated by local processors. Government has expressed

support for dairy development and school milk activities

and small and medium dairy processors have committed

themselves to donating free milk and continuing support

for these activities (targeting about 6000 children in Nay

pi Taw, Yangon and Mandalay). With financial contri-

butions from local dairy processors, Myanmar Dairy

Association is setting up a trust fund in support of these

activities. Is this what we call ‘Karma’ in true Buddhist

tradition?

SDDP team thanks all our partners, donors and support-

ers for their unwavering support and belief.

School milk catches steam in Bangladesh and Myanmar

Page 2 SDDP SPLASH

A g

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SDDP gets Public Service Award in Thailand

Our donors and partners

Dairy Field Schools on the anvil in Bangladesh

SDDP farmer beneficiaries in Bangladesh will soon witness good dairy management practices closer to their

homes. Over the next six months, it is planned to organize 50 dairy field schools—35 in Sirajganj and 15 in Tha-

korgaon/Kurigram (each comprising a minimum of 25 participants). The programs will focus on dairy cattle

management, feeding and husbandry practices, hygienic milking and milk handling, fodder availability and

growth and other similar topics. These dairy field schools will be organized on the homesteads of the progres-

sive farmers who attended the trainings at the Dairy Training Centre in Savar and will be backstopped by the

resource persons who attended the TOT training. Grameen Fisheries and Livestock Foundation will coordinate

and implement these trainings.

Smallholder dairy development programme

(SDDP) in Thailand has been nominated for Thai-

land Public Service Award.

On 21 August 2012, the evaluation committee of

Thailand’s Office of the Public Sector Development

Commission visited and evaluated activities under

the smallholder dairy development programme in

Chiangmai province as a candidate project for re-

ceiving Thailand Public Service Award. SDDP

activities in Thailand have been implemented in

close collaboration of Department of Livestock

Development, Dairy Farming Promotion Organi-

zation of Thailand, Dairy Cooperatives in Chiang-

mai and Lamphun Provinces, Chiangmai Univer-

sity, FAO and CFC. All activities have been inte-

grated as one-stop service at dairy copperatives in

order to deliver better services for dairy farmers to

improve their better livelihoods and farming prac-

tices.

Thailand Public Service Award will be presented to

Department of Livestock Development by Prime

Minister of Thailand in December 2012. This year

there are more than 270 proposals from all govern-

ment agencies throughout the country submitted to

Thailand’s Office of the Public Sector Development

Commission for Thailand Public Service Award.

Only 50 projects will receive this award. We take

this opportunity to congratulate Thailand SDDP

team and sa-

lute their coor-

dinated hard

work in pur-

suit of SDDP

objectives,

Page 3 JANUARY 2012

A glass o

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Milk a d

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Capacity development and training activities continue as planned during the last RDTF and review meetings.

Bangladesh carried out four batches of two days Residential Training Programme on Dairy Cattle Management at

the dairy training centre in Savar, Dhaka. A total of 80 participants (including 50 progressive farmers) participated

in these trainings. The programs included cattle breeds, feeding & housing Management of dairy cattle, importance

and methods of record keeping, grass cultivation, urea molasses straw preparation, hygienic milk production, vac-

cination and common diseases of Cattle, milk borne diseases, importance of milk producer groups, cattle loan &

insurance schemes, milk processing (including hands-on training) and some field visits. The training programs on

Milk Quality Testing & Preservation are currently under implementation and the first programme was om-

pleted successfully on 10/10/2012 . A total of 20 participants attended the Training Programme. The resource

persons for these training were drawn from a pool of trainers who were given ToT training in February 2012. All

the participants thoroughly enjoyed the training programme and showed keen interest in all topics.

Similarly, Myanmar SDDP processor partners got a shot in the arm by receiving training in data entry, analysis

and record keeping. They received support from SDDP secretariat on data keeping and analysis. Many of the

trainees had no prior experience in electronic data entry, storage and analysis and were ecstatic to see their own

data coming to life and speaking to them. SDDP team plans to follow this up with more sessions on useful analysis

of data on tracking milk quality, payments, etc at disaggregated level. This will help them discover, on their own,

the areas for future improvement.

Our donors and partners

Training and capacity development in Bangladesh and Myanmar

Grass is growing tall

‘Extenstion of Grass Production in Dairy Farms Project being coordi-

nated by Animal Nutrition and Research Centre (ANRC) Lamphong

is going full throttle. Seed stocks for Napier Pakchong I has been dis-

tributed to 100 farmers for plantation on 200 Rai. All the famers have

been given technical training by ANRC and the grass is growing tall.

Some of the farmers we spoke to were convinced that this is already

having a noticeable impact on the milk yields and cost of production.

Dairy extension teams supervised by

the University of Chiang Mai are

working with cooperatives to advise

the farmers on appropriate feeding

practices and to monitor impacts. The

next step is to do systematic nutritional

content analysis of Napier Packchong

1 and soil analysis of farms to monitor

nitrogen levels. ANRC is putting sys-

tems in place to that end coordinating

with Chiang Mai University and Re-

gional Labs in the area. We are optimis-

tic of the outcomes and will report

further progress at a later date.

Highlights from World Milk day and World School Milk day Celebrations

Thailand

Highlights from World Milk day and World School Milk day Celebrations

Bangladesh

Highlights from World Milk day and World School Milk day Celebrations

Myanmar

World School Milk Day Celebrations in Myanmar