A "dairy system" in this document incorporates all areas and production systems producing, and the marketing channels delivering dairy products to consumers in urban centers, including the policy environment. It is therefore often refered to as a peri-urban dairy system although it is not defined in terms of rigid geographical boundaries (like a circle) around a city.
A study site is to be defined by a consumer center, with its dairy shed and the processing and marketing actors and processors linked to them.
A dairy system is thus constituted by four subsystems: production, processing, marketing and consumption (figure 1). Each subsystem has components. For instance, the production sub-system has genetic, feeding and health components, among others.
Figure 1. Schematic representation of a peri-urban dairy system.
