Bles Dairies, through its consultancy company The Friesian, in cooperation with VetEffecT has been awarded a contract from the IFC (World Bank Group) to implement a large Dairy Development Program (DDP) for one of Uganda’s leading milk processing plants. The DDP includes the selection and training of 50 Dairy Development Extension Experts (DDEs) and to provide hands-on advice to 1.000 commercial dairy farmers in the South Western Region of Uganda.
Recently the program has started by training the first group of 20 DDEs, who are engaged in a 10 week intensive training and on-farm traineeship program. It is a combination of classroom training and on-farm training. Bles Dairies is using a local Practical Dairy Training farm that has been developed by a Dutch NGO i.e. SNV with support from Bles Dairies experts.
The first two week training session focused on animal health and tick control, rain water harvesting, farm planning and paddocking, silage and hay making, feeding & nutrition as well as milking, milk quality and herd administration. Currently, the trainees are working on existing farms and have to complete specific assignments. In the vocational training sessions, Bles Dairies engaged experts from the Netherlands and trainers from Bles Dairies East Africa (Kenya).
Field Training Classroom training