TERMS OF REFERENCE: Vietnam Cooperative Enterprise Development (VCED) Project
Consultant Assignment: Dairy Milk Sector Analysis for Smallholder Farmers in Soc Trang and Lam Dong provinces
SOCODEVI, the Société de coopération pour le développement international, is a network of cooperatives and mutuals that share technical expertise and know-how with partners in developing countries in order to create, protect and distribute wealth. SOCODEVI is a Canadian not-for-profit corporation for international development established in Vietnam since 2002.
SUMMARY OF THE PROJECT
The Vietnam Cooperative Development Project (VCED) is a newly Project managed by SOCODEVI and financed by the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD) of Canada. Project duration is of 5 years ending on March 2020.
VCED is an important capacity building project that expect to support agricultural cooperative in dairy milk and fruits value chains. This project aims to improve Vietnamese cooperative sector contribution to gender-equitable economic growth and to women and men farmers’ livelihood conditions. To achieve this, VCED Project will work at three different levels:
1) Establishment and strengthening of sustainable agriculture cooperative enterprises in strategic value chains within the Vietnamese economy to become models of reference for scaling up;
2) Improvement of productivity and quality of agriculture production in a sustainable manner at the farm (household W/M) level, with value added;
3) Support the Government and stakeholders of the cooperative sector in the establishment of an enabling environment for the cooperative development.
CONSULTANCY REQUIREMENTS
This consultancy assignment refers specifically to the dairy milk value chain where SOCODEVI is involved in two different provinces: Lam Dong and Soc Trang. It is expected that in the next years, dairy milk smallholders’ farmers will face many challenges and VCED Project intends to support them in order that they can take on these challenges. Although the demand for fresh milk is expected to grow on the long term in South-East Asia and particularly for Vietnam, the current international context for the dairy milk sector is in crisis, characterized by an oversupply market which push the biggest milk producer countries to process the fresh milk in powder and export it at a lower price. It is the case of Vietnam where the cost of production for fresh milk are too high and where the main dairy milk companies tend to cut the fresh milk with a cheap exported powder.
In a few years the TPP agreement might be signed with the consequence for Vietnam to get even more competition coming from the biggest milk producer countries. Producer of milk in Vietnam and especially smallholders’ are at risk because of their high structure of costs which will make them non-competitive. This means that a lot of farmers might not survive to this new context as dairy milk processors will gradually reduce the price paid at the farm gate level. A new farming model needs then to be conceive and promote, but for doing so, the first step is to get a good understanding of revenue trends and production costs at the farmer level.
The objective of this assignment is to get an in-depth analysis of the context of production for dairy milk farmers in Lam Dong and Soc Trang provinces. This, in order then, to come with the criteria that will lead to a new farming model for the smallholders’ farmer that could be viable and sustainable on the long term.
ASSIGNMENTS:
- Under the direct supervision of the Project Director, the Dairy consultant will be responsible for these assignments:
- Review current and future context of dairy business in Soc Trang and Lam Dong provinces
- Review the costs of production and revenue of small – medium – big farms in dairy milk business in Soc Trang and Lam Dong provinces and their relative importance according to farm households’ income
- Provide different scenarios based on proven statistic of dairy milk’s farm business according to:
- Milk prices offered by the big buyers
- Investments on technical improvements, particularly feeds and cow comfort
- Investment on environmental improvement, particular animal wastes management
- Analyze the feasibility of the different scenarios
- Advise on adaptive strategies/solutions for dairy farms to reach the selected scenarios, with clear milestones and indicators
- Review the technical training modules to cope with potential strategy/ solutions
EXPECTED OUTPUTS
All the outputs should be submitted in both hard copy and soft copy versions, and written in both English and Vietnamese:
- Preliminary report: context review, methodology of the full study, outlines of sub reports, implementation plan
- Cost – revenue survey: questionnaires, detailed survey method, raw database, data analysis
- Minute notes of discussions with targeted informants
- Report on scenarios and their feasibility
- Report on adaptive strategies/ solutions
- Report on adjustments for training modules
KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL REQUIREMENTS:
VCED looks for a consultant or a team of consultants to have:
- Rich knowledge on economic context of dairy milk sector, with more than 10 years of experience
- Experience in deploying field survey involving many stakeholders
- Experience in setting economic scenarios, with illustrated reports from previous work
- Adequate technical background on dairy raising and dairy milk production
- Rich knowledge on various dimensions influencing the dairy business, such as planning and orientation of government and big players, trading vision of dairy sector in Vietnam and influencing regions,
- Experience in capacity building for rural farmers
WORKING PLACE: in 2 of VCED Project provinces which are Soc Trang and Lam Dong,
DURATION for the study: start from late August, all reports submitted by the early October
Please send your application including:
1- introduction of the consultant/consultant team (2 pages + CV for each member)
2- technical proposal (maximum 5 pages)
3- financial proposal: including all fees needed for the full study (professional contribution, field survey, travel expenses) before August 16 th 2016, clearly specifying in the “subject box” of your email: “Dairy consultant” to the following @mail address: [email protected] [1]