From milk processers to milk entrepreneurs
Before the project, the couple used to borrow money often from neighbours to buy groceries or for medical care. Their situation has now dramatically improved.
Because of improved equipment, such as refrigerators and solar panels, less milk goes to waste and more is sold at the market. ©FAO
It is six in the morning in the port city of Al Hudaydah in Yemen. Jabrah Ali Omara is already awake tending to her three-year-old daughter. Soon after, she settles down to her usual routine of making laban – a yogurt-like sour milk. Today she will process 180 litres of milk, purchased from her neighbours. That volume is a quantum leap compared to the 30 litres a day she was able to manage when she first started out three years ago.
“Before I got married, I used to work as a hairdresser to make money to support my parents – it was good money,” Jabrah narrates. “After I got married, I decided to help my husband in his then small business of processing dairy products.”
Yemen’s dairy sector has considerable potential. There is growing demand for dairy products yet, currently, the country’s milk production only meets one-third of domestic demand, resulting in a heavy reliance on imported milk. More than 95 percent of processed dairy items are imported, also making them expensive. The small-scale dairy sector, therefore, has great potential to improve the food and income security of rural households.