AgriGRADE heeft dit gerepost
Cooperative spirit, business as a force for good, strategic management, partnership facilitation, servant leadership
Let's collaborate. Let's AgriGRADE! Last week, as founding partners of AgriGRADE (Agriterra, IDH, SCOPEinsight, Oikocredit), we met in person for the first time in Meru, #Kenya. Like the previous week in Tanzania, our main activities included team building, meeting with our client (the cooperative dairy Meru Central Dairy Union - MCDU), segmenting its affiliated cooperatives, and discussing AgriGRADE's data-driven approach and planning of activities. We visited MCDU, a dairy company owned by dairy farmers that sources milk from 146 cooperatives and farmer groups. The last time I visited MCDU was in 2012, when it was a company in dire crisis. Thanks to decisive leadership, support from key programs (including SNV/KMDP, 2SCALE, Agriterra), and “farmer common sense”, the company has risen to become the third-largest dairy in Kenya. The union provides employment to 1,217 people and has over 123,000 members in total. Impressive numbers! MCDU has bold ambitions: increase their processing capacity from 500,000 liters to 1 million liters per day, with most of the growth coming from higher productivity per cow. Achieving this requires significant efforts in areas like quality improvement, investment in fodder production, and optimizing the supply chain, including the costs of collection and processing. It also demands substantial investment in the factory and at the cooperative collection centers, adressing challenges in cooling capacity, infrastructure, and sanitation. What can the AgriGRADE pilot do for Meru Central Dairy Union? The market is not the issue; there is plenty of demand. Growth can only occur through the professionalization of the cooperatives, ensuring a reliable and sustainable supply of quality milk. Strengthening cooperatives goes hand in hand with optimizing the supply chain and accessing financing for the necessary investments both in the factory and at the cooperatives. The approach is to do this collectively, the AgriGRADE way, i.e., systemically, scalable, and data-driven, using the state-of-the-art services and tools from our partners. Ultimately, an idea to consider, is to integrate the AgriGRADE Intelligence Center into the union's business model as a tool to continuously monitor and strengthen the cooperatives. The formal launch of AgriGRADE, with all key dairy stakeholders in Kenya, was scheduled for July 4th in Nairobi. Understandably, this could not take place due to the wave of protests sweeping through Kenya. Through our work, we stand with Kenya, and hopefully, we can organize a wonderful AgriGRADE event later this year with the motto: Let's collaborate. Let's AgriGRADE! @Farmfit Fund, Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken Cindy Van Den Boom Agnes Janszen Marco Schouten Tony Bruggink Hans Perk Marise Blom Lucas Simons Roel Messie Geoffrey M. Mascha Middelbeek Bertine Schieven Moses Ogenche Janet Macharia
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