The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), through its Livestock Market Development activity, today handed over approximately $800,000 (nearly 18.4 million Ethiopian Birr) worth of dairy processing equipment to 24 grantees operating in the Amhara, Oromia, SNNP and Tigray regions. Through these grants, thousands of smallholder farmers will have access to reliable buyers, and tens of thousands of consumers will gain access to formally processed dairy and meat products.

The equipment delivered today included dairy packing machines, milk pumps, milk cooling tanks, milk pasteurizers and boilers, meat and milk transportation trucks, milk testing equipment, animal weighing scales and a mobile butcher shop. The equipment represents part of $1.9 million in USAID grants to the 24 grantees, which the grantees’ matched with their own investments of $4.2 million.

Minister of Livestock and Fisheries Professor Fekadu Beyene and USAID Mission Director Leslie Reed handed over the equipment in the presence of representatives from various private-sector entities, federal and regional government offices, development partners, as well as sector related associations and cooperatives.

“I urge the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries and all private-sector stakeholders, including today’s grantees, to work together to make the livestock industry safer and more profitable so it can improve the lives of even more people while sustainably strengthening the Ethiopian economy,” said Mission Director Reed. “We look forward to continuing our collaboration and support to public- and private-sector efforts in Ethiopia’s livestock and dairy sectors.”

The grant recipients included cooperatives and private businesses that produce, collect, process and sell dairy products and meat. The equipment grants highlight USAID’s work in the livestock sector and are a major contribution to transforming Ethiopia’s livestock sector, a goal of the Ethiopian Government’s Growth and Transformation Plan.

USAID’s Livestock Market Development is a five-year activity implemented as part of the U.S. Government’s Feed the Future initiative, with the goal to improve smallholder incomes and nutritional status in four regions of Ethiopia.