Armenia Dairy Productivity DIB

Intervention

Social or environmental challenge

The poverty rate in the Shirak region is significantly higher than the Armenian average and agriculture, particularly dairy farming, is a key source of income. Dairy farming is however charactrised by low-input subsistence activity that leads to persistently high levels of smallholder poverty, indebtedness and outward migration. Low dairy productivity coupled with market failures in the dairy value chain mean that the market operates at a low-level equilibrium of poor quality and low prices, with little possibility of smallholders being able to pull themselves out of poverty

Description of the intervention

Holistic intervention that could include a multifaceted service package designed across four pillars of infrastructure, agricultural practices, operations and market linkages:
1) Infrastructure: provide capital for processor and/or smallholder infrastructure investments, acting as co-finance where existing grant-programmes exist.
2) Agricultural practices: provide training and vet services to improve smallholder practices.
3) Operations: provide temporary input subsidies, which could be used to de-risk the additional costs associated with adopting new on-farm practices.
4) Market linkages: support the development of market infrastructure/systems to promote quality-responsive milk pricing from processors, including the potential introduction of milk collection and cooling points.

Target population

Dairy processors and smallholders (with between 3 and 19 cows) in Shirak

Outcome metrics

• Animal welfare improvement: instances of satisfactory animal welfare standards being met. Improved milk quality: proportion of smallholders achieving sustained quality in their milk production. Formalization of Milk Collection and Cooling Points - processor linkages: establishing a formal contract between milk collection and cooling points and processors and enhance export readiness. Income per household, net of production costs: increase in household income measured against a baseline taken at the beginning of the programme. Reduction of poverty and migration levels

Last data update

Data for this pipeline project was last updated in April 2022.