Green Dairy Partnership – Creating a sustainable and productive dairy value chain model

This partnership showcases a visionary operating model for a productive and green dairy value chain in Southwest Bangladesh. The project is pioneering a green, sustainable, and commercially viable dairy business, targeting a 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and a 30% increase in income for 10,000 farmer households with a scaling potential of 50, 000. 80% of the targeted farmers are women. The project will streamline milk collection and processing, while introducing more sustainably produced dairy products like flavoured milk, butter, cheese, and yogurt to the market.

The project model builds on PRAN’s dairy hub model as well as Solidaridad’s long experience in building resilient dairy farmer communities. Higher volume of quality milk enhances the business case.

The project will pioneer sustainable dairy farming inspired by the “The Big Five” model developed by SEGES Innovation and Arla. The five levers – feed efficiency, feed balance, animal robustness, manure handling and efficient use of land – will get the project 25% of the way. The last five per cent reduction will derive from process optimisation: energy, food waste and packaging.

Central to this project’s strategy is the collaboration amongst local and international dairy value chain stakeholders in Bangladesh, and the project will deliver proof-points to guide the green transformation of the dairy industry in Bangladesh. This will be managed by IDRN together with the Danish Agricultural and Food Council.