Day 33: Milk & Markets

G'day everyone!

Today, we had a great morning in Debre Zeit. First off, we started at the Ada'a Dairy Cooperative. The first milk processing plant in Ethiopia. Now, there are several cooperatives modeled after this one, all around the country. With over 400 members of the co-op, 65% are female smallholder dairy farms. I think that is so awesome.

There are 15 milk collection sites around the area. All the milk is tested for acidity, added water, and fat content. If the milk has any acidity or has more than 10% of water they cannot use that milk. They can directly to the collection site with that problem and direct it back to the farmer with the problem as well. 

They poor the milk containers into this filter which separates any physical impurities. For example a piece of straw. There is also another filter towards the bottom that rids of smaller impurities. 

After the milk is filtered, it goes through pipes connected to these 'chillers'. The milk is kept cold so that bacteria does not grow. 

After the milk goes to the pasteurizer and afterwards it gets homogenized. In this this tank, they keep the milk cool for a day or two then it gets sent to the packaging area in the next room.  And yes, they do package their milk in bags!

This is butter. Some of the milk gets sent to the butter churner and get thus butter! Except, this is no ordinary butter. This is beauty product butter! The locals here love it for hair shine and even for facial use. But, you can still use this butter for cooking if you'd like. They let us try a bit and it tastes just like butter! 

This is the yogurt packaging machine. Once the milk is packaged into either 500 mL or 250 mL, they then let it settle in the incubator with the culture to create the yogurt! 

Believe it or not, the right is cottage cheese! It is a very popular and important product here. Not everyone has refrigerator and because it's dry it has a longer shelf life. The locals also love it in general!

This is the manager of the processing plant. She gave us the full tour of the place. You could tell that she had pride for her job as well as the products. This cooperative is extremely important these dairy farmers and she is very glad to be apart of it to help support those farmers. There should honestly be more cooperatives like this one for other agricultural products that are there to support the farmers. 

After visiting the milk processing plant, we went to the market in Debre Zeit. This was our final market survey that we had to do. In total, we have now visited 5 markets! Today, we were just asking for the prices of white teff, but soon it turned into a whole crowd of locals trying to look at our notebooks (which they couldn't read anyway) and listening to our translator and the salesman. The lady selling straw didn't want to tell us the price of her straw. But, the translator was able to convince to just tell us how much she was selling it for and nothing else. With this government, many people are very worried about tax collectors and the government in general. The government is corrupt and often takes the money through taxes for themselves and not for the people. They do provide subsidies but, it's often for things for one certain sector of people. For example, there is subsidies on the vaccines created at the National Veterinary Institute. Which in theory may be good for the farmers, but everyone else that are not farmers, it's not logical. That's why the tax is very high here and on everything. Most meals (outside of Zebu) have a 15% tax and then extra surcharges. 

I'm really thankful for our drivers and translators who have helped us. So far, we have worked with people from the genebank and forage dept., people from the LIVES project, and of course people from the genetics projects. We've also made friends with the guys that work in the housing office and at the Zebu Club. Tomorrow, our field visit to the Rift Valley was moved to July 31st. So we have a free-day tomorrow. Then this weekend, we will go to Nazaret (Pronounced Nazuhreet). I'm not sure what we will be doing for sure but something about seeing the animals there. We are also told that we will spend the night there. All the details are not fully worked out yet. Dr. Tadelle is super busy so he is still trying to put it all together. 

We shall see what the future holds! Just have to go with the flow because  it's "no problem, no problem." 

Have a great day!