Our dairy development activities

Our vision on dairy development is threefold. Firstly, we aim to grow dairy value chains from farm to business by leveraging 150 years of dairy expertise and tailoring it to the local situation in eight focus countries. Secondly, we strive to let all dairy players in the chain win with fresh milk. In this way, we contribute to food security, a more sustainable milk production and raising the living standards of the dairy farmers from whom we collect milk. And thirdly, through dairy devolvement we secure our license to operate in several markets.

With our dairy development activities we train and improve the skills of dairy farmers in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe with regard to sustainable and efficient farming processes. FrieslandCampina supports local (often small) dairy farms in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Romania, Thailand and Vietnam. Our goal is to improve the quality of their milk, increase the productivity per cow and support farmers in gaining access to the market. In order to achieve those goals, we focus on trainings and knowledge sharing, partnerships and projects aimed at improving the dairy value chain, such as the upgrading of milk collection centres. Since the start of the programme in the 1980s, we have directly and indirectly reached more than 250,000 dairy farmers.

One of the unique aspects of our dairy development activities is that the knowledge sharing is often done with the help of our own employees and member dairy farmers. We arrange that through expert missions and Farmer2Farmer missions. One of the most valuable parts of the missions is that local farmers can directly implement the knowledge they receive under the supervision of our experts and ask them for further guidance and hands-on assistance.