Iran is looking to Dutch knowledge for dairy exports

Wageningen University and the Dutch business community consider 4 conditions necessary to strengthen an Iranian-Dutch cooperation in the field of dairy. Iran sees export opportunities in the region, but cooperation can also have a positive economic effect for Dutch companies in the dairy chain.

Iran is a country with a dairy tradition and the ambition within the centrally planned economy is to further grow production and export dairy. In order to be able to export to Iraq, Afghanistan and Russia, among others, the Iranian dairy sector can make use of Dutch expertise in the following four areas in particular: milk quality assurance, feed supply including quality assurance, efficient water use and education. The Netherlands has a lot to offer in all these areas. The Iranian dairy sector would like to use Dutch knowledge to improve its competitive position.

Quality must increase for export
Dairy production in Iran has increased to nearly 9 billion kg per year. At the moment, however, the production and the quality is not sufficient to be able to export. Dutch technology and knowledge can contribute to better cooperation between all links in the dairy chain. This is to raise the production and quality of the dairy to a higher level and to gain more confidence within the chain. The objective determination of the quality of the milk by an independent institute and payment based on that quality is seen as a useful step in that process.

Water efficiency and training
Water is scarce in Iran and the government therefore attaches great importance to a more efficient use of water. The Netherlands has a great deal of international experience with water-efficient crop production, both at farm level and in organizing water management at regional and national level.

The proper training of employees is also mentioned by Iranian dairy farmers as an opportunity for cooperation with Dutch partners. In addition, the changes in Iran mean that dairy farmers themselves also need more skills and knowledge about strategic and economic decisions.

Small farmer policy is missing
From the research of Wageningen University & Research commissioned by the Ministry of Economic Affairs shows that a large part of milk production in Iran comes from professional dairy farms with more than 150 cows. Some of these companies fall under state-owned holding companies. There doesn't seem to be a policy aimed at supporting small businesses.

There is also a great lack of reliable data on the sector. These themes, as well as the import of feed (additives), medicines, machines and tools (eg biogas technology), emerge from the research as opportunities for the Iranian dairy sector. However, the aforementioned four themes have the highest priority.

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