USAID supports East’s dairy farmers

At the height of the conflict in 2007, Padmarahini Naharajan was displaced from her home and left as the sole provider for two children. She toiled in the fields and sold small quantities of milk to middlemen at low prices to make ends meet. Life was difficult until she heard about the Dairy Enhancement in Eastern Province (DEEP) project, a public-private partnership of USAID, the development arm of the US embassy.

DEEP, a three-year US $ 10 million project, taught Padmarahini and others to increase the quantity and quality of milk production, and reach new markets, increasing income. DEEP has trained over 4,000 dairy farmers, distributed 3,500 small grants, established milk chilling centre cooperatives, linked 50 milk producer groups, provided modern dairy processing facilities across the Eastern province, and linked dairy farmers with service providers and financial institutions. On May 29, as the project neared completion, DEEP hosted an event in Batticaloa to share project results and lessons learned with key government, private sector and other stakeholders.

With her training , Padmarahini increased her herd and milk production substantially. The real transformation came when she and her neighbour, Jeyarajah, formed a milk producer group.

On day one, they were able to collect only seven litres of milk from the entire village. “We then started to visit nearby villages that we never had any connection with before, and mobilised residents by showing them the price we were getting,” they said.

Today, their group has 112 members across eight multi-ethnic villages.

Thanks to DEEP, she now spends more time with her children, who attend better schools. With her extra dairy income, she bought a motorbike to hire out, and saves money to build a new shed for her cattle.