GOBABIS: A high-ranking business delegation from the India-based National Diary Development Board NDDB), an institution that collects, processes, and sells fresh milk and others products in India, is currently touring the Omaheke Region.
The delegation is in the country on a reciprocal visit initiated by the Omaheke Regional Council, in its bid to establish a dairy farm in the region.
It will be touring all major economic centres in the region to familiarise itself with the geography and other dynamics of doing business here.
The delegation will also be visiting three pilot sites proposed by the regional council for the setting up of processing plants, with the larger factory envisaged for the region’s main economic centre of Gobabis.
The sites are Ben Hur in the Kalahari Constituency, Otjimanangombe Epukiro constituencyand Otjinene.
At a working dinner hosted by the regional council on Tuesday to welcome the delegation, Omaheke Regional Governor Laura McLeod-Katjirua called on development partners to get on board the project through various means.
“I wish to see development partners who are committed to imparting relevant skills, engage in capital project development, participate in decent investment opportunities and promote a cooperative spirit among our communities,” she said.
McLeod-Katjirua appealed to regional and local authority councillors to play their part in assisting the project with the provision of land in constituencies or local authorities under their jurisdictions.
“I stand here in front of you to request humbly that we shall require land, be it in constituencies as pilot testing sites and collection points, or in municipal areas as a regional processing and packaging plant,” she noted.
The NDDB, an institution managed by farmers in the form of a cooperative, has managed to transform the dairy industry in India into a world-class industry that is internationally recognised through its Amul-Anand model of milk processing.
The Amul-Anand pattern is an integrated cooperative structure that procures, processes and markets produce. Supported by professional management, producers design their own business policies, adopt modern production and marketing techniques, and receive services that they can individually neither afford, nor manage.
The model has impressed the regional governor and her entourage on their visit to India in May this year, and it is hoped that the model shall be replicated in Namibia with minor modifications to fit the Namibian market.
The Indian delegation is expected to present their findings on the feasibility of the pilot sites at the end of their tour in Windhoek next Monday.