30 December 2011

2 minute read

The project will be implemented by ILRI with CIAT as a major partner. The project will be called MilkIT (Milk in India and Tanzania) and the grant agreement was signed in October 2011. Activities are expected to start in earnest in early 2012 with a pre-inception meeting in Nairobi.

The projects will again be experimenting with innovation and value chain approaches to feed development. The project will be embedded within the new CGIAR Research Programme 3.7: More milk, meat and fish, for and by the poor.

The overall goal of the project will be to contribute to improved dairy-derived livelihoods in India and Tanzania via intensification of smallholder production focusing on enhancement of feeds and feeding using innovation and value chain approaches.

The objectives of the project are three-fold:

1. Institutional strengthening: To strengthen use of value chain and innovation approaches among dairy stakeholders to improve feeding strategies for dairy cows.
2. Productivity enhancement: To develop options for improved feeding strategies leading to yield enhancement with potential income benefits.
3. Knowledge sharing: To strengthen knowledge sharing mechanisms on feed development strategies at local, regional and international levels.

Already a number of preparatory steps have been taken to ensure rapid project start up. These have mainly related to scoping missions to the two study countries with a view to identifying project sites and partners. The main activities are summarized below:

Scoping visits:

Tanzania: A project team including Alan Duncan (Project Co-ordinator) and Brigitte Maass (Tanzania Country Co-ordinator) along with Ben Lukuyu and Amos Omore of ILRI visited Tanzania in August and conducted a 5 day tour of potential sites and partners. The visit began in Arusha and went by way of Tanga and Morogoro to Dar-es-Salaam.

Meetings were arranged with a wide range of potential partners and stakeholders. The process was useful in raising awareness among potential partners about the incoming project. The visit also provided some pointers to potential project sites and these will be firmed up in a pre-inception meeting in Jan 2012.

Uttarakhand, India: A similar scoping visit was made to Uttarakhand by Alan Duncan and Nils Teufel (India Country Co-ordinator) in December 2012. The visit centred around two main locations, Dehra Dun and Almora. Stakeholder mini-workshops were held in each location introducing the project and gathering information on ongoing dairy activities and key current issues around dairy value chain development.

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