PRESS RELEASE
AFRICA MILK PROJECT IS ONE OF THE 5 BEST PRACTICES IN THE WORLD SELECTED BY THE
EXPO 2015 COMMISSION TO RESPOND TO THE NEEDS OF THE PLANET
With the "Africa Milk Project: love your land, fight poverty, drink your milk”, CEFA the seed of
solidarity, Granarolo, the Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Njombe Livestock
Association in Tanzania win first prize as
Best Practice in the category: “Sustainable
development of small rural communities in marginal areas”.
Bologna, 17 February 2015 – The 800 projects entered were examined by a commission made up of names
of the calibre of photographer Sebastião Salgado, Prince Albert of Monaco, the Italian Minister for
Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies, Maurizio Martina and Andrea Illy, President of Illy Caffè.
Africa Milk Project came first in its category: "Sustainable development of small rural communities in
marginal areas" (www.feedingknowledge.net).As a result, it will be one of the 5 projects that will be
presented as Best Practices in food safety on a world level in Pavilion Zero, the space developed in
collaboration with the United Nations and entrusted with the task of introducing the forecasted 20 million
visitors to the theme of the universal exposition in Milan. The project will be presented with a film
made by Expo, shown for six months in Pavilion Zero:this will tell the story of the "heroes” of
this small miracle.
“The winning Best practices”, said Giuseppe Sala, sole commissioner of the Italian Government for Expo
Milano 2015, “will be the stars of Pavilion Zero, together with the creators of these projects that
will act as the testimonials for Expo Milano 2015. This is an initiative that has been extraordinarily
successful, much to our pleasure, going to show, once again, the importance of the universal exposition's
theme in every part of the planet".
“It will be important to tell the millions of visitors to Expo about the extraordinary aspect of this project: a
social dairy that is an “inclusive development model” because it redistributes income to several
members of a community: the 800 farmers who every day provide the milk, who otherwise would not
have a market to sell it on, and the workers in the dairy-cheese factory and their families", explained Paolo
Chesani, director of Cefa Onlus. “Economic rationale would have recommended collecting the milk
from one large farm with a few hundred heads of cattle, but instead we decided to involve 800
small family-run farms - over 5000 people - with 2 or 3 cows each. This was a real challenge,
but we are convinced that real development cannot exist in a country like Tanzania if the
benefits of growth are not redistributed as widely as possible. Thanks to this virtuous circle, this
dairy has today gone from being a funded project to a company whose shareholders are also
the beneficiary partners”, Chesani finishes by saying. “In this way, the local businesses involved were
put in a position to autonomously take on the project activities, creating long-term sustainability”.
“We have supported a project that copies the cooperative model that is the very base of
Granarolo itself, in one of the poorest areas in Tanzania.We have supported it over time, with the
tenacity of those who wanted to see it take off, inspired by the historic founder of Cefa Onlus, senator
Giovanni Bersani, who died recently, and his team. They were constantly at our side, urging us to take on
missions that went far beyond the logics of mere aid", explains Gianpiero Calzolari, President of Granarolo,
the company that has believed in and actively supported this project since 2004. “Today the Njombe dairycheese factory is standing on its own legs thanks to the Africans (so many) in the dairy, the local women,
who look after the farms and the animals, the Cefa collaborators and Granarolo employees, always proactive
with their skills.We are convinced that this model can be exported to bring tangible job
opportunities to other farmers and dairy workers with the production of pasteurised, and
therefore safe, milk to lots of children worldwide”.
“The prize to the Africa Milk Project, co-funded by the Cooperazione Italiana, is important recognition of
the ability of players in the Italy System to identify effective solutions to the challenges of
nutrition", commented Giampaolo Cantini, General Director for Development Cooperation of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. “This is a valid example of how it is possible to promote development by creating alliances
between the no-profit world, the private sector”, in particular the world of cooperatives, and public
institutions".
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Every day, the Njombe Milk Factory receives 3200 litres of milk from 800 local farmers who own a maximum
of 2 or 3 dairy cows. Once brought “by hand” or collected with a truck, the milk is pasteurised. Once a week,
a certain amount is distributed at a low price to 58 schools in the Njombe district (in southern Tanzania),
reaching a catchment area that today numbers 28,000 schoolchildren. The calcium in the milk is
fundamental in children's diets. Part of the milk is sold and a small amount is donated to hospitals and
orphanages locally. The rest becomes yogurt, sold in local markets, and various kinds of cheese. Caciotta,
provolone and especially mozzarella are sold in the most important cities in Tanzania and on the island of
Zanzibar. In the beginning, the aim of this project was to improve life in rural communities and develop the
district's economy; today it is a business that is starting to show a profit.
UFFICIO STAMPA CEFA
Sara Laurenti – cell. 340/8314500