Dairy Case Study

Dairy Success Story Mazar-i-Sharif

Mr. Nurullah is a farmer and lives in Chilgazi village of Dahdadi district of Balkh province, Afghanistan. He has 9 children and owns 1000m2 land. Prior to 2007 his main activity was crop production. He had no cow. He found it difficult to feed the family and have some remaining income for education, and buying other food for the family such as rice, oil, cereal, meat and dairy products. In 2007 he heard about the Integrated Dairy Schemes project through the milk producers’ cooperative society and decided to join the programme. Since 2007 his family life has changed. He now owns one dairy cow and has 2 heifers reared for keeping as replacement stock. Specifically the family now has a regular income of 180Afs daily from selling milk. He delivers 12 liters of milk to the village milk collection centre, one liter milk is used to feed his children and from one liter milk is used to make yoghurt. 100% of income earned from milk produced and collected goes directly to his wife who makes the decisions on how the money is spent.

The family mainly spends the income on: 1. School material: pens, notebooks, books and uniforms 2. Animal feed 3. Food item: such as sugar, tea, rice, cooking oil, bean, candy and etc 4. Medicines for treatment of family members 5. Traditional

Also has benefit of : Manure used for fuel and sale (one bag 50kg is sold for 150Af every three days), Heifers for keeping Membership of cooperative; two bags (100kg) concentrated feed received as bonus. Based on his experiences to date Mr. Nasullah and his wife plan to have four dairy cows.

The IDS changed our livelihood; we have regular income at household level and receive 900Afs weekly from the village MCC. Also we are able to use milk and yoghurt for feeding our family. We hope when we reach to produce more than 50liters milk, the MCC buy all our surplus milk.