JIGJIGA, Somali Region – USAID Mission Director Dennis Weller announced a $350,000 grant to a milk processing plant, Berwako Milk Processing PLC, in Jijiga Town to improve the milk market for pastoralist communities and enhance the competitiveness of the livestock industry in Ethiopia’s pastoralist areas.
Berwako Milk Processing PLC was recently built to process cow and camel milk into different dairy products. USAID’s support to Berwako will enable more than 3,000 pastoral and agro pastoral households in Duhusha, Fafan, Bombas, Babile, Awbare and Kebribayah to have access to a more reliable and regular market for their milk. Better access to markets will in turn stimulate more production of milk, improving livestock productivity in the area. The company is planning to export products to Djibouti and Somaliland.
USAID’s Pastoralist Areas Resilience Improvement and Market Expansion (PRIME) is working with businesses that can really make a difference for pastoralist areas of the country. “Our goal is to transform these areas and the lives of the people through improved nutrition, more jobs, and better income for milk producers. It’s very much in line with the government’s Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP),” says Weller in Jijiga to announce the grant and visit the site.
The grant to Berwako Milk Processing PLC is part of the competitive Innovative Investment Fund implemented by USAID’s PRIME, which provides matching financial support to agribusinesses in selected value chains that are likely to generate increased incomes in pastoral and agro-pastoral communities. “USAID PRIME helped me make my dreams come true,” says Amir Muktar, the owner of the plant.
USAID PRIME’s support to Berwako is focused on building the capacity for purchasing raw camel and cow milk from over 3,000 pastoral and agro pastoral households and process more than 15,000 liters of milk every day. USAID PRIME is providing technical assistance to all actors in the supply chain including local production cooperatives and women’s groups, milk consolidators and traders, processors and their network so that they can achieve operational efficiency and meet quality standards.
USAID PRIME is a five-year project (2012-2017) with funding from the U.S. Feed the Future Initiative designed to increase household incomes and enhance resilience to climate changes through market linkages in Ethiopia’s dryland areas of Afar, Somali and Oromia regions.
