| Dairy farmers in Kosovo boost quality to meet demand
Julja Idrizi locks her arms around the calf’s middle, and a white-coated student grabs it by the horns, buying just enough time for another student to stick its hindquarters with a needleful of vaccine. The student recoils as if he’s the one who’s been stuck. Idrizi laughs, and the curly black-and-white bundle squirms out of her grasp.
“It takes six months of practice before they can do everything right,” says Idrizi of the farmers and students she trains to take care of dairy cows. She has good reason to help them: her business depends on farmers doing things right. Idrizi buys 600 liters of milk from local farmers, tests it for quality, then pours it into the cooler along with 1,000 liters of milk from her own 38-cow operation, H&H Farms in Shtime, in central Kosovo. She sells the milk to Devolli, a long-life milk processor 50 miles to the northeast that accepts only quality-tested milk.
Processors like Devolli are driving the pace of change in Kosovo’s dairy sector. If they can bring down costs and raise quality, they can displace imports — currently 90 percent of the domestic market — and eventually compete in regional markets. But they need the cooperation of producers like Idrizi.
She’s on board, but her wish list is long. She wants to increase her herd by 30 cows every 4 months, she says, passing around a steel plate piled high with chunks of homemade white cheese. (A dairy cow generally calves three times before going to slaughter, so the herd needs constant renewal.) She wants automated milking equipment, high-quality bull semen for artificial insemination, alfalfa seeds with a high germination rate. She wants an 80,000-euro loan.
USAID is working to connect farmers like Idrizi with the resources they need. The Kosovo Business Support project helped H&H develop a business plan and obtain an initial loan. A consultant worked with H&H to improve feed for the herd. And Idrizi traveled to Albania and Macedonia under project auspices in search of equipment, spare parts, and the daily cleaning supplies that help ensure milk safety: double steel sinks for washing and rinsing milk cans, special cleaning brushes, disposable cloths for cleaning each cow’s udder separately.
Safety is the watchword at ABI, a dairy processor in Prizren, some 30 miles to the south. Visitors don white lab coats and white galoshes, swishing the footwear around in a tray of disinfectant before being allowed in. Everything is bright and clean. In a corner lab, a Turkish-trained technician tests incoming milk for bacteria and other contaminants before accepting it into the system. The milk travels through pipes along the ceiling and is pasteurized before being processed as yogurt or cheese. A technician climbs a ladder, peeps under a conical tank lid, and checks a culture for progress. Large, open trays of soon-to-be-cheese wait for their time to come. A refrigerated room houses neatly stacked rounds of cheese stamped with expiration dates. At the end of the line, a driver loads cups of yogurt and buckets of white cheese onto a truck.
In his office, decorated with product packages and a small U.S. flag, owner Irfan Fusha credits USAID with helping his company develop and market new products, such as flavored yogurt and whey. Now, USAID is helping ABI undertake an ambitious program to implement two international food safety protocols, GMP and HAACP. “We’re not waiting until we’re required,” says Fusha. “Our children consume these products. We want them to be safe.” Once ABI has put the prescribed practices in place, the plant can be audited and certified as complaint by a licensed quality inspector. Then ABI can export to the European Union.
Fusha’s son drifts in. “Now he goes to Gjakova in 20 minutes in his Mercedes,” his father jeers gently. “We used to ride horses — it used to take all day.” His son lowers his head and smiles sheepishly. His three sons are working their way up the family business ladder. The one who manages the dairy had to learn the production line jobs first. “It’s like an army,” declares Fusha.
Fusha would like to expand production, but it’s complicated. “Everything is linked,” he says. “If you buy more equipment, you have to hire more employees, arrange for more incubation and storage space, increase marketing and distribution.” He churns his hands, conjuring the future. “Everything needs to happen at the same time.”
--------------------------------------------------------------
The Kosovo Business Support project ended in September 2004. Chemonics continues to work with Kosovo’s dairy farmers and processors under the $20-million, four-year Kosovo Cluster and Business Support project.
[Print Version]
|
