Danish market study visit dairy production Malaysia

27 March – 6 April 2017 the Embassy of Denmark, Kuala Lumpur arranged the ‘Cattle trip – or the Market Study Visit: Dairy Production’.

The purpose of the trip was to facilitate B2B meetings between the participating six Danish companies and local farmers in Malaysia who currently have challenges with their dairy production.

The kick-off meeting for the meeting started at the Embassy of Denmark, followed by ten days of travelling around Malaysia. The agriculture companies’ representatives, along with a representative from the Danish investment fund for developing countries IFU (to tell about how they can assist with financing potential investments etc.), and a representative from University of Copenhagen, spoke with state and local authorities, farmers and other stakeholders in the Malaysian dairy sector.

They spent two days in Melacca speaking to local authorities and learned about the current strategies to increase Malaysia’s dairy production. They also visited farms near Johor and Melacca and spoke to farmers on their specific challenges. Everything from breeding, nutrition, farm design, equipment and ventilation was discussed.

The market study visit also travelled to Sabah on Borneo.

Malaysia can only produce 5% of the milk that it currently needs – the rest is imported, primarily from Australia. There are many deciding factors: from climate (the heat and humidity as well as the poor ventilation in the stables) to poor feed, illness and breeding. Denmark is among the best when it comes to dairy production and we want to solve these local Malaysian challenges with Danish solutions, writes the Embassy of Denmark, Kuala Lumpur.

The Embassy’s role was to ensure that the participating six Danish companies met with local farmers in different areas of Malaysia and could speak to them about the challenges they have with their dairy production.

They visited different types of farms – from the largest commercial dairy farm in the country (Evergreen) to small agro-tourism farms owned by the local government (Desa Dairy Farm), as well as several others, each different in size and with different challenges.

By visiting these farms, the Danish companies could get a feel of how they are organized and how they are run here in Malaysia. Along the way there were forums where the local authorities (our partners) had invited the local farmers to come and hear what the Danish companies can do to help and why they should be interested in their products and solutions. After the forums there was the possibility of B2B meetings between the company representatives and the farmers.

“In addition to the six Danish companies, we invited Henning Otte Hansen from KU-LIFE, an expert on cooperatives, to come to Malaysia and speak with both local authorities and farmers who are very interested in the idea of cooperatives in Malaysia and are keen to learn more on how they work and why they are so successful in Denmark.”

They also visited two banks in Kuala Lumpur – Agro Bank and SME Bank.