S.A.M. Anwarul Haque
Former General Manager
Bangladesh Milk Producers’ Cooperative Union Ltd (Milk Vita)
Dhaka
Bangladesh has a population of 140 million people; more than 80 percent of them, or approximately 15 million households, are located in rural areas. An estimated two-thirds of those households own livestock. Although population growth is slowing, there are still almost 1 000 people per sq km – the highest density of any country in the world (excluding small island-nations and city-states). The dwindling per capita land resource is one of the causes of persisting poverty in the county, according to contemporary human development reports from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP): More than half the population owns less than 0.5 acres; the bottom 40 percent possesses just 3 percent of the total land area; 48 percent live below the poverty line; and 30 percent consume less than 1 900 calories per day (the minimum desired level is 2 300 calories).
Agriculture generates two-thirds of total employment, contributes a quarter of total export earnings and provides food security to the increasing population. Crop production and animal husbandry are interdependent in the country’s mixed-farming system, with livestock performing multiple functions, including the provision of food, nutrition, income, savings, draught power, manure, transport and other social and cultural functions. With livestock, people who are poor and landless can still access common property resources, such as roadsides, open grazing areas and water bodies. Cattle are by far the most important farm animals; smallholders possess the majority of them, and they are directly linked to family income, nutrition and welfare. While animal husbandry is a part of mixed farming, the system of production is not well integrated, and maximum value is not always gained from the inputs and outputs. There is scope for basic improvements that can lead to greater integration and productivity.
In 2006, the livestock sector contributed 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), or about 18 percent of agricultural GDP.4 When the indirect benefits of draught power and manure for fuel and fertilizer are added to the direct economic output of meat, milk and hides, the value added of the livestock subsector almost doubles, to about 6 percent of GDP. Livestock also provide a critical cash reserve and steady cash income for many marginal farmers who grow crops essentially for subsistence or who have little or no land at all. The national herd comprises: 23 million cattle, 1.2 million buffalo, 20 goats and almost 3 million sheep. Milk production was 2.27 million tonnes in 2006, mainly produced by cows yielding, on average, 200–300 litres per 160/180-day lactation.
In the few specialized areas where cross-breeding has taken place, yields range from 1 000 to 3 000 litres over a 210/300-day lactation.5 Until quite recently, milk was a by-product of cattle, used largely for making traditional sweets and in tea. Per capita milk availability currently ranges from 40 to 50 g per day (14–18 kg per year). The gap between supply and demand is largely met by milk powder imports of about 20 000 tonnes annually, valued at some US$70 million.6 Imports represent 0.16 million tonnes of liquid milk equivalent annually, feeding some 6–7 percent of total consumption and accounting for an estimated 55 percent of the formal dairy market. Although there is no specific nutritional target in the country for milk consumption, the figure of 250 g per day (90 kg per year) often appears in national plans, implying an annual milk requirement of 12.8 million tonnes – more than five times current production.7
The first dairy plant was set up in 1946 by the National Nutrients Company in the then Indian subcontinent, at Lahirmonhanpur, now in Sirajganj district (northern Bangladesh). Following the partition of India in 1947, the Eastern Milk Products Company took over through an exchange of properties. Milk and dairy products marketing eventually started in 1952 under the brand name Milk Vita in the then East Pakistan. The cooperative accumulated huge losses, as did the only other dairy venture, Asto dairy in Dhaka, which began in the 1960s. By 1970, both dairies had virtually ceased trading.
Acute scarcity of milk following independence from Pakistan in 1971 prompted the Government to commission two dairy studies, with support from FAO and the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA). The studies’ authors recommended establishing a sustainable cooperative dairy development programme based on buying surplus milk from smallholder producers and combining the businesses of Asto and Milk Vita into the Eastern Milk Producers' Cooperative Union Ltd, which became Bangladesh Milk Producers Cooperative Ltd (BMPCUL) in 1980.
The Milk Vita Cooperative Dairy Complex was established in 1973 and operated until 1978 under the auspices of the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives, with support from FAO, DANIDA and UNDP. The cooperative model was largely adapted from the successful Anand Pattern Dairy Cooperative in India. Two dairy plants and three milk collection centres were built, and milk collection from smallholders started in 1976. The Government also established a small dairy at Savar in the mid 1970s, close to Dhaka, to provide government employees processed milk from its Central Cattle Breeding Station.
At Milk Vita, the gap between milk supply and demand was originally met by recombining butter oil and the skimmed milk powder (that DANIDA and the European Economic Community provided) into liquid milk. By the end of the 1970s, more and more village cooperatives had been established and annual milk collection from some 36 000 smallholders had rapidly built up to 15 million litres. But by the mid 1980s, Milk Vita had virtually collapsed, with less than 3 million litres of milk collected annually. The problem was attributed to unfair competition from imports flooding in from subsidized over-production in Europe. At that time, whole milk powder was retailing at less than 20 percent of its cost price in Europe and one-third of the cost of milk production in Bangladesh.
By the beginning of the 1990s, import taxes were imposed to counter the adverse impact of the cheaper imports. Also at that time and following the recommendations of the FAO technical assistance team, the Government withdrew from day-to-day management of the dairy cooperative. Professional managers took over, turning Milk Vita into a profitable business.
Fortuitously, the turnaround at Milk Vita coincided with a growing market for processed milk as urbanization accelerated. This encouraged other investors to adopt parts of the Milk Vita smallholder dairy model. The sector now engages many enterprises, as Table 1 indicates. In 1990, processors collected just 1 percent of the total milk production of 1.5 million tonnes (30 000 litres per day); by 2006, this had increased to 7 percent of 2.27 million tonnes (384 000 litres/day).
Other developments since the 1990s:
Table 1: Milk processing capacity, 2007
|
Dairy (establishment year) |
Average milk collection (litres/day) |
Smallholder |
|
|
1. |
Milk Vita (1973) |
200 000 |
150 000 |
|
2. |
Amomilk (1996) |
10 000 |
5 000 |
|
3. |
Tulip Dairy(1998) |
3 000 |
2 000 |
|
4 |
Arong–BRAC Dairy (1998) |
80 000 |
70 000 |
|
5. |
Bikrampur Dairy (1998) |
10 000 |
6 000 |
|
6. |
Ultra–Shelaidah Dairy (1998) |
10 000 |
4 000 |
|
7. |
Aftab (1998) |
8 000 |
4 000 |
|
8. |
Pran (2001) |
40 000 |
30 000 |
|
9. |
Grameen–CLDDP (1999) |
7 000 |
6 000 |
|
10. |
Rangpur Dairy (2007) |
8 000 |
7 000 |
|
11. |
Akij Group (2007) |
4 000 |
500 |
|
12. |
Grameen Danone (2007) |
1 000 |
From CLDDP |
|
13. |
Savar Dairy (1974) |
3 000 |
From own farm |
|
14. |
Army |
Self-consumption |
From own farm |
|
Total |
384 000 |
284 500 | |
|
Source: Khan. |
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Dairy sector policy and strategy
Following the establishment of Milk Vita, two dairy development studies were initiated in the 1980s as a preface to scaling up cooperative dairying elsewhere in the country. The Government and UNDP/FAO sponsored both studies. The first, in 1984, led to the National Cooperative Dairy Development Plan. The Chairman of the Indian National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) orchestrated the second study, in 1987, which led to expanding the earlier plan into a formal strategy for dairy development in Bangladesh. The strategy proposed a regional approach, based on setting up four regional dairy cooperatives to collect milk from smallholder village cooperatives and process and market it safely and affordably to lower-income urban groups. The regional dairy cooperatives would be enveloped into a national dairy federation or a dairy development board. Detailed implementation programmes were prepared but have remained shelved for more than two decades.
Current government policy for agriculture aims to provide an enabling environment and supportive role in moving from a predominantly state function to a more diversified and environmentally sustainable commercial venture. The strategic framework targets non-crop agriculture, such as fishery, poultry and livestock, for accelerated investment.
After an intensive stakeholder consultation process, the Directorate of Livestock Services (DLS) and the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock (MOFL) drafted the National Livestock Policy in 2005. It was finalized in 2006 under the recently completed Grameen Bank/UNDP/FAO Community Livestock and Dairy Development Project (CLDDP). Although the DLS and the MOFL adopted the policy, it has yet to be approved by the Cabinet, due largely to the succession of interim governments and prevailing civil unrest since it was prepared. Although the policy contains no separate dairy component, the Milk Vita and Grameen–CLDDP dairying models are promoted as “models for early adoption”.
Once approved, the policy will have several more tough challenges:
The Government’s National Strategy of Accelerated Poverty Reduction (NSAPR, 2005) sets out ways and means for achieving two of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): halving poverty and halving under-nutrition by 2015. The strategy document states that while the livestock sector as a whole grew 3 percent during the 1990s, poultry has demonstrated the most impressive growth rate, at around 10 percent per annum since the mid 1970s. Growth in milk production generally has mirrored the general trend in the livestock sector, with low productivity a major limitation to sector development because production remains primarily for subsistence and is highly dispersed. With rapid urbanization and income increases, the demand for livestock products, such as meat, milk and eggs, will continue to rise. The strategy targets local milk production to replace imports, which currently range between 10 and 20 percent of annual consumption. The strategy promotes community-based organizations of production, processing and marketing to overcome the constraints. Smallholder milk producers thus are expected to play a key role in helping to achieve the target and, in so doing, helping Bangladesh to achieve the MDGs relating to poverty and nutrition.
The NSAPR includes a school lunch programme to improve attendance and reduce the incidence of malnutrition as well as generating demand for local produce and catering services through backward and forward links. Community participation is a key driver. Currently, the United States’ Department of Agriculture funds a small school milk programme in Bangladesh, for which the US company Land O’Lakes imports milk and then recombines it with its milk powder. Although they enhance the nutrition intake of school-age children, school milk schemes using imported milk powder have limited sustainability and are less beneficial to livelihood development as those using locally produced milk.
Affordable and readily available cattle treatment and other development support provided by Milk Vita and Grameen-CLDDP have encouraged the expansion of milk producers. Still, even though the Government now generally recognizes smallholder milk production in its development strategy, the absence of a comprehensive national dairy policy may limit the growth of the sector. What has been achieved so far primarily relates to the influence of a milk collection system introduced by dairies, which has resulted in a fairer price system for producers. Initially, a government ministry set Milk Vita’s prices; but since becoming more independent in the early 1990s, Milk Vita has decided its own prices, in competition with the other dairies as well as imports.
Smallholder milk producers play a key role in dairy markets in Bangladesh. They supply all the domestic milk for the informal traditional market and three quarters of the formal processed market (Annex I provides an illustration of the various smallholder milk producers). Milk Vita and Grameen–CLDDP institutionally promote the empowerment of smallholder dairy farmers, both men and women, in the value chain and business ownership/management process, which encourages their participation. Other processing dairies tend to focus on milk collection only.
Informal traditional markets model
Smallholder milk producers sell milk directly to consumers or milk supplier/middlemen at local markets (Figure 1). The middlemen cater to the demand of sweetmeat shops, bakeries, consumers, more distant markets and vendors. They pay producers up to 50 percent less for their milk than other models, such as those described in the following sections. In many cases, the middlemen provide loans to smallholders with interest rates of up to 20 percent per month.
Figure 1: Traditional milk trader model
Milk Vita Cooperative model
The Milk Vita Cooperative model was adapted from the world-renowned Anand Model in India. It modestly started in the mid 1970s by providing 4 300 very poor, often landless, households in remote rural areas with a complete package of milk production-enhancing technologies, organizational skills and a milk collection-processing-marketing system. It has since grown into a successful commercial dairy enterprise, collecting from more than 100 000 smallholder members of some 1 200 primary village cooperatives and then processing and distributing the milk to all major cities in the country. In 2006, smallholder milk producers sold 75 million litres of milk surplus. They also earned patronage dividends from Milk Vita’s profits. The resulting increase in milking cow numbers and savings generated has helped cushion them against the devastating effects of severe flooding that regularly afflicts the country.
A novel aspect of the Milk Vita operation is its urban distributor cooperatives. These use locally fabricated “ milkshaws” – an insulated box mounted on a traditional three-wheeled-cycle rickshaw chassis – to deliver affordable pasteurized milk and dairy products to urban shops and consumers.
The Milk Vita model (Figure 2) created jobs, reduced collection and distribution costs and improved milk quality by cutting delivery times, especially in congested city areas. One off-farm job was created for every 35 litres of milk collected, processed and marketed, and more than half those jobs are in rural areas. Democratically elected milk producer and distributor cooperative members are now in the majority on Milk Vita’s board of directors. These achievements encouraged the Government to withdraw from the day-to-day management, enabling the board to hire professional managers, which led to improved performance and created a platform for further expansion to bring more poor people into the dairy value chain. Since the late 1990s, Milk Vita has invested more than $10 million to expand its milk collection, processing and marketing network and now delivers safe and affordable milk and dairy products to some 5 million low-income urban dwellers.
Figure 2: Milk Vita Cooperative model
The benefits of the Milk Vita Cooperative model:
Milk Vita continues to be a flourishing venture and has many recent imitators that have set up similar enterprises to process and market 70 million litres of milk annually. However, these enterprises do not provide cattle development or productivity-enhancement support and technology to milk producers.
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Box 1: Milk Vita helps one woman create a dairy cooperative and change her family’s prospects Sandhya Rani Bala lives with her family in the very poor village of Takerhat in Faridpur district, more than 200 km from Dhaka. Born in 1965, she married in 1980. With the help of her husband, she bought her first cow and started to sell her spare milk to Milk Vita to supplement her family’s income. Encouraged by the support she received in the form of a fair milk price as well as patronage bonuses and animal husbandry support services, she helped form a village milk cooperative exclusively for women. It now registers more than 200 members. Mrs Bala initially earned 7 000 taka ($100) per month selling her surplus milk. She has sold four cows over the past two decades, for which she earned approximately 200 000 taka ($2 857) in addition to her regular milk sales and bonuses. She also bought an acre of land for 360 000 taka ($5 150) for growing crops and fodder. In 1995, Mrs Bala was elected to Milk Vita’s board of directors, known as the Managing Committee, for two consecutive six-year terms. She says milk and cattle have changed her life and the lives of her family; her two sons were able to seek out higher educations, one now an engineer and the other in his final year studying medicine. Her husband has been very sick over the past four years, and the milk sales have financed part of his expensive treatment. Mrs Bala now owns eight cows, valued at about 400 000 taka ($5 700) and sells 10 000 litres of milk annually, worth about 195 000 taka ($2 800). |
Private entrepreneur model
Private dairies, some owned by non-government organizations (NGOs), such as the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), usually operate through milk supplier/middlemen (known as ghoshes or dudhwalas) in place of rural groups or cooperatives (Figure 3). They collect milk for a specific dairy, however, smallholders involved in the system do not receive any value-added benefit – only the basic price for their milk.
Figure 3: Private entrepreneur model
Grameen–CLDDP model
This is a profitable, integrated, community-owned crops-livestock-fish farming system that operates in one of the three poorest areas of the country and includes a dairy chain module. Established in 2000, the model was pioneered under the Grameen Bank/UNDP/FAO CLDDP project. Very poor landless families are organized into groups of five people. These village group members (VGMs) can access commercial loans for raising livestock and other income-generating activities. Some 80 percent of them have opted for dairy cows. The loans include compulsory animal feed and insurance components. VGMs have access, at full cost, to all the inputs needed to produce and market milk. They supply their milk surplus to community-owned milk collection centres for primary processing at community-owned dairy enterprises. The pre-processed milk is then sold to established dairies like Milk Vita, Bikrampur Dairy and Grameen Danone Foods for further processing and marketing. Some processed milk is also marked locally. The VGMs own 70 percent of the community feed mill and dairy enterprises (Grameen owns the other 30 percent) and thus share in the profits. While in some ways it is a social dairying model, it is also commercial in operation.
The feed mill enterprises provide quality dairy rations, compounded from locally available agriculture by-products, for the VGMs who either have insufficient land or no land at all to grow their own feed and fodder. Once the smallholders have four or five cattle, they have enough dung to take a loan for a bio-digester to produce gas for cooking and lighting. The spent slurry from the bio-digester is then used to fertilize and increase the productivity of fish ponds. Every two or three years the ponds are emptied, the slurry dried and used as crop fertilizer. In this way, smallholder dairying has become an important component of an integrated and environmentally sustainable farming system for poor people.
Figure 4: Grameen�CLDDP model
Benefits for the village group members include:8
So far, these benefits have resulted in moving more than 3 000 smallholder households out of poverty. The model is being scaled up across the country. For example, a Grameen Danone Foods Bogra Dairy started up in 2007 and produces inexpensive bio-yogurt for poor people. In five very poor districts in the Northwest, 10 000 smallholder families are being covered under a 10 billion rupee ($15 million) programme that will operate until 2010 with funds and management from the Palli Karma–Sahayak Foundation.
Box 2: Cows, milk and one family’s rise out of destitution Lily Begum lives with her husband in Jokar Char village in Tangail district. Born in 1957, she married in 1972 at age 15. She had three sons, but the family lived in destitution. They used to own a tiny patch of land (one-fifth of an acre) until the Government appropriated it to build an elevated road in the mid 1990s. The family situation worsened until 1998 when the excavated land (such as the Begum’s) was turned into fish farms. A Jokar Char Landless Women’s Fish Centre was set up to manage some of the fish ponds, and Mrs Begum became a member. At that time she and her family lived in a kutcha (bamboo) house, with a few pieces of kutcha furniture. Mrs Begum first earned about 4 800 taka, or $70, a year from her fish pond. When the Grameen Bank/UNDP/FAO Community Livestock and Dairy Development Project started, Mrs Begum borrowed 24 000 taka ($378) from the new Grameen Bank Community Credit Scheme to buy a milk cow. From 2000 to August 2007, she sold 13 500 litres of milk and earned 245 000 taka ($3 550). Through her livestock, she earned a net profit of 162 000 taka ($2 350), equivalent to 27 000 taka ($390) per year. Currently, she has two milk cows and three calves, worth about 100 000 taka ($1 450). With the earnings from the milk and selling animals, she established a rural engineering business for her elder son (the other two sons died), built two tin houses with concrete floors, built a bio-gas plant, purchased other household items (such as a refrigerator, a TV and furniture) and installed a tube well to provide clean water for her family and her neighbours. |
Grameen Danone model
Grameen Danone Foods was created in 2006 as an innovative joint social venture between the Grameen Bank and Groupe Danone , a large French multinational dairy corporation renowned for its bio-yogurt. Danone recently established a new division called Danone Communities and gained approval from its shareholders to set up a 50 million Euro ($70 million) mutual fund to channel investment into not-for-profit social ventures in developing countries. Ninety percent of the fund is invested in low-risk securities, the remaining 10 percent in higher-risk social ventures. The first social venture is Grameen Danone Foods, which produces low-cost, fortified yogurt for sale in rural communities. A pilot dairy enterprise was set up in Bogra. The long-term plan is build rural enterprises in ten other disadvantaged areas of Bangladesh . The Bogra enterprise began in February 2007 and currently purchases about 300 – 400 litres of milk daily from the Grameen–CLDDP Joysagar Dairy enterprise at Nimgatchi, about 50 km away.
Figure 5: Grameen Danone model
Lessons learned
The following is a summary of some of the developments and lessons that have shaped smallholder milk production since organized dairying started in the latter half of the twentieth century in Bangladesh:
Tens of thousands of very poor rural households have moved out of poverty as a result of the successful introduction of the holistic Milk Vita and Grameen–CLDDP smallholder dairying models. Many families now own up to 20 cows and have intensified and commercialized their milk production. The two models embrace a complete cow-to-consumer package of input and output services, and their ongoing scaling up has helped put the dairy sector in Bangladesh in a unique position to take advantage of the recent huge increases in the cost of imported dairy products, especially milk powder, by substituting imports with domestically produced milk.
The policies proposed in the draft National Livestock Policy (2006) and the National Strategy of Accelerated Poverty Reduction (2005) recognize that milk produced at the community level by smallholder households can play a significant role in improving nutrition, incomes and jobs. It is clear that a more detailed, long-term dairy development strategy is needed to translate those policies into a national dairy programme that clearly focuses on smallholder milk producers.
Such a strategy might include a clear vision/mission statement for enhanced smallholder participation in dairying; it could promote smallholder dairying under the National Livestock Policy as one of the strategies to help Bangladesh achieve its Millennium Development Goals of halving poverty and halving under-nutrition by 2015.
Three overarching strategic objectives that would help expand the dairying sector:
It is important that an inventory be undertaken of appropriate dairy chain models, including their:
This could be accompanied by an inventory of strategic public- and private-sector stakeholders and followed by the development of an indicative investment programme with a focused, time-bound national action plan containing realistic and measurable targets, such as raising milk and dairy products consumption from 18 kg to 25 kg by 2015
Government and dairy stakeholders should jointly develop the strategy, which should clearly identify the areas best addressed by the public sector and those best addressed by the private sector. The strategy would then inform policy-makers and industry stakeholders about opportunities for future investments in smallholder-oriented dairy development.
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Box 3: Key definitions Smallholder milk producer:Person or household, often landless or without assets, engaged in milk production for economic return on surplus milk, usually owning up to three cows. Smallholder dairy farmer: Milk producers linked to milk processors through cooperatives or associations, or individually by milk traders/middlemen. Initially, they start with one animal but have potential to grow. Many household have moved out of poverty and now have 20 or more milk animals. Informal market: Markets near to producer locations where producers directly or through traders collecting milk from farmers’ homesteads sell milk to consumers or middlemen suppliers of sweetmeat shops, bakeries or against other trading contracts. Formal market: The guaranteed market for smallholder milk producers in which regular processed milk and milk dairy products supply consumers, including institutional buyers such as hotels, restaurants, airline kitchens, superstores, etc. Dairy value chain: The stages through which milk and dairy products are marketed from producer to consumer. |
References
Publications and articles on the dairy subsector are very limited in the country. Most of the available literature is in the shape of project documents, souvenirs and seminar/symposium and study papers.
Ali , A. M. 2002. Development of rural cooperatives: Problems, opportunities, challenges and removal measures. CICTAB Seminar, Dhaka . Registrar, Cooperative Directorate. (paper)
Chowdhury, A. M. 1979. Consolidation of cooperative dairy complex. Bangladesh Milk Producers’ Cooperative Union Ltd Dhaka. (official project document)
FAO. 2007. Draft project completion report, by B. T. Dugdill . Community Livestock and Dairy Development Project (BGD/98/009). Dhaka.
FAO. 2007. Draft project completion report. Grameen Bank/UNDP/FAO Community Livestock and Dairy Development Project (BGD/98/009).
FAO. 2000. Milk Vita in Bangladesh: A case study, by B. T. Dugdill and A. Bennett . Rome .
FAO. 2000. Grameen Bank demonstrative milk processing enterprises, Workshop Paper No. 3, by B.T. Dugdill . Community Livestock and Dairy Development Project (BGD/98/009). Dhaka.
FAO. 1986. Project completion report. Cooperative Dairy Project (BGD/79/033).
Government of Bangladesh. 2005. National strategy for accelerated poverty reduction.
Haque, S. A. M. A. 2005. Role of milk producers’ cooperative societies for poverty alleviation and economic development in Bangladesh . Seminar paper presented at Celebration Ceremony 100 Years of Cooperative (1904-2004). Dhaka.
Haque, S.A.M.A. 2002. Dairy cooperatives in Bangladesh. Seminar paper presented at the Asian Seminar, Hiroshima University , Japan .
Haque, S.A.M.A.1994. Balancing, modernization, rehabilitation and expansion of the cooperative dairy complex. BMPCUL. Dhaka. (official project document)
Hossain, M. 1982. Conversion of government loans and investments in cooperative dairy complex into grant. BMPCUL. Dhaka. (official proposal to the Government of Bangladesh)
FAO. 1984. National cooperative dairy development plan, by G. C. Juneja, H.J.G. Gansey and R.G. Mertin. DP/BGD/79/033 Field Document-6, Cooperative Dairy Organization and Extension Programme (Phase-II), Dhaka.
Kastrup, D. 1972. Observation and recommendations regarding development of Lahirmonhanpur Plant, Pabna district, Bangladesh . Danish International Development Agency. Dhaka.
Khan M. H., Patwary M. S., Hossain M.S. & Nath S.R. 1990. Milk for our people: A state of art study on the supply of milk throughout Bangladesh by the cooperative societies of milk producers. Cooperative Directorate, Motijheel. Dhaka. (official project document)
Kurien, V. 1987. A strategy for dairy development in Bangladesh, by the Chairman of the National Dairy Development Board, Anand, India. BMPCUL. Dhaka.
Latif, S. 1973. Cooperative dairy complex project. BMPCUL. Dhaka. (official project document)
Livestock Directorate. 1998. Development and activities. Dhaka.
Livestock Directorate. 2003. Annual report. Dhaka.
Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock. 2006. National livestock policy. Government of Bangladesh. Dhaka.
Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock. 1992. Livestock development policy, Government of Bangladesh. Dhaka.
Nielsen , P. 1973. Survey report and recommendations: Lahirmonhanpur and ASTO Dairies. DANIDA. Dhaka.
Rahman, M., Ali, M.M.I. & Haque, S.A.M.A. 2000. A policy study on the dairy development in Bangladesh. Bureau of Sociological and Economic Research and Training, Bangladesh Agricultural University. Mymensingh , Bangladesh . (study document)
Rangnekar D. & Thorpe W. (Editors). 2001. Smallholder dairy production and marketing – Opportunities and constraints. International Livestock Research Institute.
Souvenir. 2004. Conference of Agriculturists Forum of Bangladesh. Dhaka.
Souvenir on the Seventh Bi-Annual Conference and Seminar (2003); Bangladesh Animal Husbandry Association. Paper presented by Kbd. Syed Altaf Hossain.
Annex I: Milk flow chart
Milk production information from the Directorate of Livestock Services, processing information from dairy plants and flow data estimated from market operation /tendency.
Annex II: Milk price chart (December 2007)
Conversion: 70 taka = US$1
Cooperatives, other dairies and the market.
4 Directorate of Livestock Services, Bangladesh, 2006–2007.
5 Directorate of Livestock Services, Bangladesh, 2006–2007.
6 Bangladesh Bank, annual report, 2006.
7 Kbd. Syed Altaf Hossain, Paper presented at the annual (2003) Bangladesh Animal Husbandry Association conference.
8 Draft terminal report. Grameen Bank/UNDP/FAO Community Livestock and Dairy Development Project (BGD/98/009), 2007.
