Mondel Dairy Company Sample Clauses

Mondel Dairy Company. Goat Milk Producers in Northern Ecuador Traditionally, the Afro-Ecuadorian communities located in the Mira Canton of Ecuador’s Chota Valley and the Bolivar canton in the province of Imbabura have practiced goat herding and consumed goat meat and goat’s milk as part of their daily diet. Only on occasion would they sell the goat meat to local merchants. Goat herding provided an important nutritional and economic contribution for families living in this relatively dry and impoverished region of northern Ecuador. Carried out without the use of modern technology, goat herding took place on large tracts of communal land where the animals could graze freely. Due to population increases, the reduction or elimination of communal lands, and the lack of knowledge of alternative techniques for raising livestock, these farmer families were forced to give up goat herding as an economic activity and turn to riskier short- cycle crops, which were often subject to severe market-based price fluctuations and conditions imposed by intermediaries. As a result, poverty and malnutrition have become the norm in the region. PRODEL seeks to improve the plight of small producers like those that reside in the Mira and Bolivar cantons of northern Ecuador by linking them with anchor firms such as the Mondel Cheese Company, which produces specialty cheeses. Mondel currently supplies Ecuadorian supermarket chains like SuperMaxi and plans to expand into the export market in the near term. To do so, they have been looking for a steady flow of quality goat milk for cheese production in its factory located on the Colombian border with Ecuador in the Xxxxxx Province. As a result, Xxxxxx has chosen to work with these Afro-Ecuadorian communities where the majority of the producers are women with a rudimentary knowledge of goat raising. This producer alliance will make it possible for 49 small farming families to organize themselves and participate in a formal training process through PRODEL. A total of 120 families will receive technical assistance in addition to a herd of goats. A collection center will also be provided by the company to help ensure the production of quality milk to be sold at a fair price to the Mondel Company, through a commercial agreement. Producers have used their own capital to purchase 120 goats of the Anglo- Nubian breed, which have already begun to bear their first offspring, and are being cared for by members of the producers groups. An additional 120 animals will be...