The Tanzania Diary Development Program Launched

The Tanzania Diary Development Program (TDDP) was launched in Dar es Salaam today, January 25, 2011. The American people, through the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), awarded Land O'Lakes more than $8 million to support a three-year project designed to strengthen Tanzania dairy producers, processors and feed and veterinary manufacturers and at the same time help them provide more nutritious food products to Tanzanian consumers.

The USDA-funded program will be executed and coordinated by Land O'Lakes International Development. The program's goal is to improve incomes and strengthen food security for nearly 18,000 farmers and agricultural input and service providers, with indirect benefits to 87,000 family members, and give more than 1.5 million consumers access to milk's nutritional benefits..

The TDDP will focus at improving milk production in Tanga, Kilimanjaro, Arusha and Mara regions while developing milk marketing activities in these regions as well as in Dar es Salaam and Dodoma areas.

The program among other things, will promote best practices in business management for dairy enterprises among individual farmers, producer groups and milk collection centers, In addition, Land O'Lakes will assist in the development of a proper cold chain, including procuring equipment through a matching grants program to support the purchase of milk cooling tanks, with recipient producer groups matching costs for other investments, including collection center buildings, related equipment, waste water treatment systems or other infrastructure needs.

Speaking at the launching ceremony, attended by Tanzanian and U.S. Government representatives, Ms. Rachel Trego from the U.S Department of Agriculture said the three-year effort, part of the Food for Progress Program, showed the commitment of the American people to help to ensure lasting food security for the people of Tanzania.

Quoting U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, Trego said, "This food assistance program furthers the Obama Administration's efforts to introduce and expand free enterprise in the agricultural sector of developing countries and emerging democracies around the world." She added that within the last year, USDA has provided more than $145 million in international assistance under the Food for Progress Program, benefiting more than 3.4 million people and providing access to new opportunities for farmers and rural communities worldwide:

"The Tanzanian Dairy Development Program is just one facet of the U.S. Government's assistance to Tanzania's people and the country's agriculture sector. Assistance is currently being provided through USAID to develop the horticultural industry of Tanzania, and through the Millennium Challenge Corporation to build major roads to connect farms to market. Additional investments are planned through the United States' global hunger and food security initiative, known as Feed the future."

Land O'Lakes is the second largest food and agricultural cooperative in the United States doing business in all 50 states and it started international development programming in Tanzania in 1997. In its first program, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) cooperative development program I, created and strengthened dairy cooperatives, provided technical assistance to farmers and processors and promoted dairy consumption across the country. In its cooperative program II which ended in 2009.