Theme 4: Developing the Asia smallholder dairy development strategy (DDS)

Continued from Theme 3

Priority themes

While the participants were on the field trip, the facilitators analyzed data from the outputs to date and came up with a list of priority themes. These were further distilled and presented as a paired-choice exercise. The participants were asked to reconvene in their discussion groups and complete the paired-choice exercise as a group, i.e. one completed paired-choice table per group. The results were then tabulated in-session and these became the list of priority themes for the consideration in the final strategy. The completed tables are presented below.

Objective 1: A glass of Asian milk per day for every Asian child

Human Resources & Knowledge management	20
Competitiveness & Productivity	14
Social/poverty issues	13
Institutions & Regulation	12
Safety & Quality	10
Enabling Environment	9
Finance	9
Consumers & Market access	7
Environment	6
Private Sector Engagement	5
Value Chain Integration	4

Objective 2: Regional dairy food security

8. Human Resources & Knowledge management	19
3. Safety & Quality	18
9. Environment	16
2. Competitiveness & Productivity	13
11. Social/poverty issues	13
4. Enabling Environment	10
10. Consumers & Market access	7
7. Finance	5
6. Institutions & Regulation	4
5. Value Chain Integration	3
1. Private Sector Engagement	1

Objective 3: Ten per cent of existing smallholder producers in each country become commercial dairy entrepreneurs

8. Human Resources & Knowledge management	10
4. Enabling Environment	8
10. Consumers & Market access	8
2. Competitiveness & Productivity	6
5. Value Chain Integration	6
1. Private Sector Engagement	4
6. Institutions & Regulation	4
7. Finance	4
3. Safety & Quality	3
9. Environment	1
11. Social/poverty issues	0

Objective 4: Each link in the dairy food chain becomes more efficient, productive and profitable

2. Competitiveness & Productivity	10
8. Human Resources & Knowledge management	9
10. Consumers & Market access	8
3. Safety & Quality	6
4. Enabling Environment	5
7. Finance	5
1. Private Sector Engagement	4
5. Value Chain Integration	4
6. Institutions & Regulation	2
11. Social/poverty issues	2
9. Environment	0

Objective 5: Higher earnings for safer quality milk

2. Competitiveness & Productivity	19
10. Consumers & Market access	18
7. Finance	16
8. Human Resources & Knowledge management	15
3. Safety & Quality	12
4. Enabling Environment	10
5. Value Chain Integration	8
1. Private Sector Engagement	5
9. Environment	3
11. Social/poverty issues	3
6. Institutions & Regulation	0

Objective 6: National recognition of the value of smallholder dairy production

3. Safety & Quality	69
8. Human Resources & Knowledge management	61
10. Consumers & Market access	53
6. Institutions & Regulation	45
5. Value Chain Integration	43
7. Finance	43
11. Social/poverty issues	41
2. Competitiveness & Productivity	38
4. Enabling Environment	19
9. Environment	11
1. Private Sector Engagement	8

The final choice of the priority themes was not based on numbers alone. The guiding principle was elicitation of expert knowledge. For example, it was quickly noted that private sector engagement was ranked very low. However, through discussion, it was agreed that:

The top six priorities do not exclude the private sector; private sector engagement is implicit in many of the top six; for example, an ‘enabling environment’ is for the private sector.
The low ranking may be a result of the methodology; the term itself is open to wide interpretation. For some, ‘private sector’ meant ‘informal sector’; for others it meant multinational corporations. Consequently, it was clear that terms need to be clearly defined before discussions.
The challenge in formulating a strategy is how to identify a path (or paths) for smallholders; the top six priorities tell us something about ‘how’ this might happen. It was agreed that the private sector is the vehicle for growth.
For most of the participants at this workshop, private sector engagement is implicit and therefore was not singled out as an explicit factor.