In Mongolia milk and dairy products are a vital part of our tradition and heritage; and for the food secure livelihoods of the vast majority of our rural people. Livestock contribute more than one fifth of GDP and provides more than half of all employment. Dairying in particular provides much-need nutrition, incomes and jobs and is set to play a major role in helping my country to achieve our Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty and hunger by the year 2015.

Mongolia used to be self-sufficient in milk but now imports increasingly large quantities of dairy products at considerable cost in terms of foreign exchange. We have the capacity to produce all our milk. The main bottleneck is getting the milk already produced by our own herders and farmers safely and efficiently to our people. To overcome this we need to replace existing obsolete milk collection and processing infrastructure with improved, more modern technologies.

To attain this objective and revive the dairy sub-sector we have mobilised project support from the Government of Japan and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. The project is market-oriented, practical in nature and involves the entire cow-to consumer dairy food chain. I am particular impressed by the participatory implementation approach adopted by the project team, which engages all public and private sector dairy operators. To facilitate this process I have constituted a National Dairy Task Force to guide project implementation as well as to revive the national "white (milk) revolution" programme.

By launching this website the project is reaching out not only to its partners and stakeholders in Mongolia, but to people interested in poverty reduction and dairying all over the world. I am convinced the project and the project team will play a leading role in reviving our dairy sub-sector.

Milk is sacred in Mongolia - let us all work together to restore the Mongolian milk and dairy products market to Mongolians.


H.E. Dendev Terbishdagva
Minister of Food and Agriculture
Member of Parliament of Mongolia
Ulaanbaatar
December 2005