FrieslandCampina New Dairy Zone, Ha Nam Province

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The Dutch dairy farm FrieslandCampina is developing three diary zones in Vietnam. Image courtesy of TUBS. FrieslandCampina held the ground breaking ceremony for the new dairy zone in July 2014. Each farm of the diary zone will have 50 to 80 cows. Image: courtesy of John Poyser. A subsidiary of the Netherlands-based dairy cooperative FrieslandCampina, FrieslandCampina Vietnam, broke ground on a new dairy zone in Moc Bac Commune in the Duy Tien District of Ha Nam Province, Vietnam, in July this year. The new dairy zone is being developed as part of a larger public-private-partnership project initiated in the province. The project aims to establish specialised dairy zones for family farms that can contribute to food security while creating jobs and reducing milk imports. The partners in the dairy zone development project include FrieslandCampina, the international animal feed conglomerate De Heus, the Wageningen University and Research Centre, Friesian Agro Consultancy, food consulting company Fresh Studio, the Ha Nam Government, as well as the Dutch Government. The project, planned to be implemented between 2014 and 2018, includes the development of three dairy zones in Vietnam. Each dairy zone will have at least 50 dairy farms producing about seven million kilograms of fresh milk a year, when operational. The project implementation is also expected to create 345 new jobs. Each dairy farm will own a herd of 50 to 80 heads, which will be fed in cultivated grass and corn fields. Promotional activities and formal training programmes will be organised for further expansion of the project. Farmers engaged in the project will benefit from a dairy cattle feed supply chain and will be provided with financial assistance. As the main partner in the project, FrieslandCampina will manage, control and execute the project and provide direct investment. It will open three specialised dairy zones in Vietnam, including two dairy farms per zone on a pilot basis. FrieslandCampina will also provide financial support in the form of granting preferential loans to farmers, as well as training and technical advice on how to produce hygienic and quality milk at competitive prices. The Ha Nam dairy zone will initially be developed in a 54.5ha site with ten dairy farms. It will serve as a model for sustainable dairy development in the country, which will help local dairy farmers to run their businesses in a competitive manner raising the quality and quantity of their dairy produce. They will adopt agricultural and dairy farming methods, such as reducing energy consumption and improving the mineral cycle that has very little impact on the environment. The cattle will be administered antibiotics and kept in humane conditions. FrieslandCampina, with an annual revenue of €11.4bn ($15.2bn), is one of the five biggest dairy companies in the world. The Netherlands-based company employs 21,186 people in 28 countries, mainly in Asia, Europe and Africa. FrieslandCampina is also one of the largest dairy cooperatives in the world, with 19,244 member dairy farmers in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. The company supplies consumer products including dairy-based beverages, toddler nutrition, cheese and desserts to approximately 100 countries. FrieslandCampina Vietnam currently has two production locations, Ha Nam and Binh Duong. The development of new dairy zones in Vietnam is part of the company’s overall strategy to increase its production volumes and maximise the value of milk produced by its member cooperative farmers.

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