NMSU Extension Collaborates on Dairy Partnership With Indonesia

Nearly 80 years ago, the national school lunch program began in the United States. Indonesia is attempting to establish its free lunch program for an estimated 80 million schoolchildren, and the New Mexico Department of Agriculture, working with New Mexico State University’s Cooperative Extension Service, is collaborating to help the fourth-most populated country achieve that ambitious feat.

As members of the U.S. Indonesia Dairy Partnership, or USIDP, the U.S. Dairy Export Council, New Mexico Department of Agriculture, NMSU and Indonesian industry and academic partners are working on a dairy farmer training project to educate small and medium-scale Indonesian dairy farmers on various best practices for growing milk production and improving quality. USIDP officially launched in November 2024.

In early January, the first series of dairy farming technical training courses were delivered via both in-person and virtual instruction, followed by a training road show throughout West-Java to include agricultural officials, academia, cooperatives and aspiring farmers poised to change the agricultural landscape.

This project has been more than a year in the making, and Robert Hagevoort, professor and Extension dairy specialist at the NMSU Agricultural Science Center at Clovis, together with Dustin Cox, NMDA dairy division director, have made several trips to Indonesia in that time.

“It was a delight to meet many of these young farmers and learn about their desires to change the industry and their eagerness to learn,” Hagevoort said. “They opened their farms and their homes to share about what they are currently doing and discuss their plans for growth, their challenges and their opportunities as they embark on a future in a country that will need to feed many more, and where animal protein is going to play a critical role in the development of the fourth-largest country in the world.”

With Indonesia’s population of 277.5 million people and more than 17,000 islands, the virtual curriculum development of short, topic-specific videos enables a wider set of Indonesian farmers to access the training materials. NMSU and NMDA, working with Indonesian technical consultants, developed and directed the training videos.

The project has four objectives, farm management, including administrating farm operations from budgeting and personnel to infrastructure and sanitation, animal welfare and ongoing training; dairy animal nutrition, including feed management and trends, nutrition practices and reducing caloric stress; improving quality and increasing yields, including herd and pasture techniques, adaptation practices and weather management; and animal health, including treatment of diseases, vaccines and animal hygiene.

“Currently, the 75,000 smallholder dairy farmers in Indonesia only produce about 20% of the current dairy needs in the country without considering population growth or the bold initiatives for a school lunch program and support programs for pregnant and lactating women, the new president has announced as hallmark programs for his presidency,” Hagevoort said.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Indonesia was the seventh-largest dairy export market for the U.S. in 2023 with a total value of $304.85 million.

“Even if successful and training programs were capable of initiating growth doubling current dairy production levels, the country would still be producing significantly less dairy than needed, and it offers a unique opportunity for the U.S. to provide besides the training and development of Indonesian small holder farmers, dairy products for a long time to come. It is exciting to be able to play small role in that process,” Hagevoort said.