International Livestock Research Institute Training course report Training on hygienic milk production and handling in Guwahati, Assam, India December 2013 © 2013 International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) This publication is copyrighted by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). It is licensed for use under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. To view this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/. Unless otherwise noted, you are free to copy, duplicate, or reproduce, and distribute, display, or transmit any part of this publication or portions thereof without permission, and to make translations, adaptations, or other derivative works under the following conditions: ATTRIBUTION. The work must be attributed, but not in any way that suggests endorsement by ILRI or the author(s) NON-COMMERCIAL. This work may not be used for commercial purposes. SHARE ALIKE. If this work is altered, transformed, or built upon, the resulting work must be distributed only under the same or similar license to this one. NOTICE For any reuse or distribution, the license terms of this work must be made clear to others. Any of the above conditions can be waived if permission is obtained from the copyright holder. Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author’s moral rights. Fair dealing and other rights are in no way affected by the above. The parts used must not misrepresent the meaning of the publication. ILRI would appreciate being sent a copy of any materials in which text, photos etc. have been used. Written by Ram Pratim Deka and Delia Grace Edited and formatted by Tezira Lore Citation ILRI (International Livestock Research Institute). 2013. Training on hygienic milk production and handling in Guwahati, Assam, India. Report of training courses held in 2013. Nairobi, Kenya: ILRI. i Contents Background .............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 1 Training summary ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 3 Agenda ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Training material .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 5 List of participants ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 6 ii Background In 2009-10, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and its local governmental and non- governmental partners designed and developed two sets of customized training manuals (five modules in each set): one for dairy producers and another one for milk traders. The training manuals were developed after a knowledge, attitudes and practices survey and training needs assessment of the target groups under the Department for International Development-sponsored Research Into Use program in order to build the capacity of informal dairy market actors to produce, handle and sell hygienic and safe milk. The modules were prepared with a view to make the training location- and target group-specific, short, simple, useful and focused on its objectives. Attention was also paid to the affordability and accessibility of the suggested tools and technologies. Overall objectives of the training program for milk producers and traders 1. To improve the hygiene and quality of milk produced and marketed by informal dairy market actors. 2. To reduce the risk of zoonotic and milk-borne diseases such as brucellosis and tuberculosis. 3. To make the informal dairy market actors competitive in the emerging open retail market led by big corporate houses. 4. To increase self-esteem, self-satisfaction and social status of the informal dairy market actors. 5. To bring the informal sector dairy market actors under the ambit of some sort of regulation. In order to roll out the program on the ground, ILRI initially tried to develop a group of resource persons within the community by gathering experienced local dairy farmers and traders and training them as trainers. Accordingly, three training-of-trainers courses were organized and several resource persons were trained but, unfortunately, the plan did not work well because of paucity of time of experienced dairy producers/traders to train others and also because of lack of confidence among them to deliver training. Thereafter, ILRI and its governmental partners — including the Dairy Development Department, Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Department, Guwahati Municipal Corporation, Health & Family Welfare Department and the World Bank-sponsored Assam Agricultural Competitiveness Project — constituted a Joint Coordination and Monitoring Committee (JCMC) under the leadership of the Director of the Dairy Development Department, Government of Assam, with the objective of ensuring hygienic quality and safety of milk marketed by informal dairy sector players through collective efforts and shared responsibilities. As a first step, the JCMC decided to build the capacity of dairy producers and traders in hygienic milk production, handling and marketing under the technical guidance of ILRI. This was to be followed by monitoring, certification, licensing and branding of informal milk market actors. Building on the enthusiasm, collective effort and committed technical support from ILRI, the World Bank-sponsored Assam Agricultural Competitiveness Project initially granted 300,000 Indian rupees (5500 United States dollars, USD) to start the training program. With that amount, the Dairy Development Department, under the banner of JCMC and with full technical support of ILRI, trained about 221 milk traders in greater Guwahati City. With time, JCMC grew stronger and more effective in influencing senior bureaucrats and decision-makers to create a favourable environment for the development of the traditional dairy sector. JCMC met at periodic intervals to collectively take all sorts of decisions related to traditional dairy sector development. They also built a friendly working relationship, through an active mediator role by ILRI, with the Greater Guwahati Cattle Farmers’ Association and the Greater Guwahati Milk Traders’ Association and took them into 1 confidence in organizing the training and planning of field activities. Unfortunately, the initiative suffered at its peak when funding ceased in 2011-12. Progress of dissemination work done by ILRI in 2013 with funds from the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) During field data collection of the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID)-sponsored GET Dairy project in Assam, ILRI’s enumerators realized that the earlier training and knowledge dissemination by ILRI and the Dairy Development Department under the banner of JCMC produced a lot of positive results on the ground. As a result, many untrained producers and traders requested to be trained. ILRI therefore decided to allocate USD 20,000 from the agriculture-associated diseases theme of the A4NH in the last part of 2012 to bring a logical end to the initiative and complete the whole planned task by JCMC in Guwahati City within a stipulated period of time. The important tasks that were planned with the additional funding included training of milk producers (another important group of actors in the dairy value chain without whom hygiene and quality of milk could not be improved); conducting of the remaining training courses for milk traders; refresher training for milk traders who were trained in 2010; and monitoring, certification and licensing work as planned. The tasks that have already been completed are depicted below. In 2013, ILRI undertook to train all milk producers operating in and around Guwahati City. Also, later in the year, ILRI allocated an additional USD 6000 to launch a similar training course in Jorhat town, another project site of ILRI in Assam, India under A4NH. From December 2012 to December 2013, ILRI trained 471 producers (356 producers in Guwahati city, Kamrup and 115 producers in Jorhat town, Jorhat). Out of the trained producers, 398 were male and 73 female. The training and monitoring programme is ongoing and expected to be completed in the first half of 2014. Unfortunately, the training of milk traders was hampered by some external factors such as the frequent increase in the price of raw milk, stiff competition from local pasteurized milk and imported packaged milk, and conflicts within and between the traders’ and producers’ associations. Under these circumstances, traders increasingly face challenges to sell their milk and anticipate severe consequences in earning their livelihood. They consider that if they come under the ambit of the new initiative led by JCMC, they may lose their profit margin further. Therefore, small-scale retailers are reluctant to go through the training and to improve the quality of milk they sell. Nevertheless, the producers are not much affected by this change process and