Promoting Agricultural Value Chains
In the OIC Member Countries
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dairy products with international standards, exports are to be promoted in coordination with
relevant state agencies, and business regulations will be proposed and approved with
international references on the issue. Promising export opportunities for dairy products are
particularly identified for Arab and African markets (LACTIMED, 2014).
5.2.6 Conclusions and lessons learned
The Egyptian dairy sector is growing and is considered to be among the better performing of
Egypt’s agribusiness sectors. In light of a growing population and changing consumption
patterns towards more dairy products, growth opportunities exist in particular for the
processing and manufacturing segments to target local consumers. Moreover, export of milk
products is only emerging and has not yet reached its full potential, as the sector is
predominantly focused on fulfilling domestic consumption needs. Market opportunities seem
to lie especially in other Arab and African countries, but may also include the EU seeing the
generally good trade relationships.
However, a number of issues need to be addressed to take advantage of the growth of the dairy
sector. Specifically, the fragmentation at the production level with the majority of producers
being unorganised smallholders represents a significant challenge in terms of adhering to
basic product hygiene. This concerns about 85 percent of the total milk produced in Egypt,
which is consumed as raw milk and does not undergo further processing, including
pasteurisation. Not only have studies revealed that raw milk consumption poses health risks,
but from a value chain perspective this is also a missed opportunity for the creation and
distribution of further added value. Integrating smallholder dairy farmers into formal
processing and marketing channels, for instance through farmer organisations or collection
centres, is thus critical for the development of the entire dairy sector. In turn, this requires an
adequate support infrastructure for smallholder farmers, ranging from training and technical
services to feedstock supply, to help them raise both the quantity and quality of milk.
Integrating smallholder farmers into the formal value chain also necessitates considerable
investments into upgrading and modernising existing infrastructure to ensure fast processing
and product handling times. If exports are to be promoted, meeting international quality
requirements is critical, which necessitates further public support.