Colombian dairy farmers experience substantial increase in profits by adopting good farming practices
Our team in Colombia on a field trip
In 2015, The AgriBusiness Group, as a leader of a consortia, has been engaged by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade through the New Zealand Aid Programme to implement the Colombia Dairy Value Chain Project. This is a 4.5 year joint New Zealand Aid Programme / Colombian Government development initiative with the goal of supporting Colombia to develop a profitable and competitive dairy farming sector (high tropical zone) through widespread adoption of integrated management systems, developed and adapted from New Zealand and Colombia dairy experience and validated under Colombian conditions.
The project is primarily focused on Colombia’s small and medium scale farmers (ranging in size from 1 to 20 cows) in three regions of the Colombian high altitude tropical zone. Over the last 4 years the project has worked closely with farmers to introduce insights from New Zealand dairy farming experience and validate and adapt these to local Colombian conditions. The adoption of these improved management practices has been spectacular. The 40 farms that have been working closely with the project in the piloting of these practices have had significant increases in productivity and profitability as illustrated below. This shows the changes in farm profit per Ha for the 10 farms in each of the 4 Farmers Associations that the project has worked with to develop improved farm management strategies. The positive impacts on the families has been dramatic.
Figure: Farm profitability increase of pilot farms during the implementation of new practices
10 Good Practice Guides and associated videos (in Spanish) have now been produced that summarise this knowledge and these are shared on our website here. The project is now working closely with Colombian organisations including the main research organisation, Agrosavia to share the results of the project to other dairy farmers in Colombia.
For comments or questions, please contact Jon Manhire.
Para la versión en español, por favor haga clic aquí.