Last year the French company Danone (maker of Activia yogurt) bought a 40% stake in the Kenyan dairy firm Brookside, a sign of the growing importance of the dairy market in the wider eastern Africa region. But the story doesn’t end with the big household names. Smallholder farmers are also getting a piece of the dairy bonanza in Kenya:
On a related note, here is how a company in China is helping industrialize the country’s dairy sector:
A milk scandal erupted in China in 2008 when the industrial chemical melamine was found in dairy products nationwide. While many Chinese dairy companies faced huge losses or bankruptcy as a result, one small firm, Dairy United, accelerated its development. Dairy United is one of the fastest-growing and most innovative Chinese dairy producers, one that features an unusual organizational structure and business model. Unlike most corporate and cooperative dairies that purchase cows on the market, Dairy United leases dairy cows from local farmers, giving it access to its primary asset without a large up-front investment, and letting the firm grow its dairy herds with newborn heifers. In return, farmers receive fixed payments biannually, but relinquish control rights and residual claims to the firm. Thus, Dairy United’s leasing is helping transform Chinese milk production from a backyard, labor-intensive activity to a more industrialized mode of farming. The case is particularly interesting for understanding applications of agency theory in agribusiness.
That is according to a new paper in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics (which I hope chaps at the Ministry of Agriculture in Nairobi subscribe to).
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