(00:20) Ethiopia has the highest cattle population in Africa, at 52 million, including 10.5 million dairy cattle. (00:26) From 2011 to 2012, Ethiopia produced an estimated 3.3 billion liters of milk. (00:32) However, only 4.96 percent was sold in commercial markets. (00:40) Despite the active dairy sector, individual consumption of milk in Ethiopia, at 19 liters per year, is amongst the lowest in Africa. (00:48) This is only a fraction of the World Health Organization and Food Agriculture Organization recommended levels of 210 liters per annum. (00:58) Ethiopia is to be known as a milk land country and now we have children that have never tasted a glass of milk in their entire life. (01:03) Project Mercy is a faith-based not-for-profit relief and development agency; (01:10) it was established in 1977 by Marta Gabre-Tsadick, the first woman Senator of Ethiopia under the late Emperor Haile Selassie, and her husband, Deme, after their family was forced to flee Ethiopia during the rise of communism. (01:20) Project mercy’s vision started when we were escaping from Ethiopia. (01:27) From there on, our life is committed to serve Ethiopians that were destitute. (01:33) In 1993, Marta established a partnership between the Government of Ethiopia and Project Mercy, (01:39) which allowed Project Mercy to support communities surrounding Yetebon, SNNPR and Chacha, Amhara. (01:50) After signing the agreement with the government we gave one hundred and fifty hectares of land to Project Mercy in Chacha. (01:53) On behalf of the government, I can say that we are ready to work together (01:58) and expect Project Mercy to help farmers reach their potential in milk production. (02:09) The people that we are serving in Chacha are people whose income is so very low that they cannot afford milk for their children. (02:17) So what we are doing is to give them pregnant heifers and train them on how to take care of them. (02:24) They’re going to pay something for it. We have to partner when we work, it’s not a handout. (02:31) The United States Agency for International Development is supporting Project Mercy’s goal to help poor households increase their income (02:39) and improve their families’ nutrition and health with technical assistance and training provided by experts from its Livestock Market Development project. (02:44) USAID’s Livestock Market Development project will support Project Mercy in different ways. (02:48) We will provide them as much as possible technical assistance. (02:57) In assuring that Project Mercy is becoming economically valuable operation, so we have got a number of areas where we have to work with Project Mercy. (03:09) One of these is a breeding operation where Project Mercy can breed heifers and then sell them on to the household targeted for them to produce milk and generate income. (03:14) The second area is that Project Mercy can start producing feed and food of animals (03:19) which is required food of animals to get for the household to really able to manage the animals and maintain them. (03:25) Three, we are going to train their stuff on animal management and farm management. (03:31) So number four, we support Project Mercy in assuring that the household that obtain the heifers get connected to the market. (03:38) Fifth we need to support Project Mercy in looking investment fund on building all these operations. (03:44) That’s how the lives of market development project will immediately have positive impact on the house of nutrition standards. (03:55) Chacha is an area where livestock is produced and we see that increased milk productivity we get from crossing local with jersey cattle (04:04) and see the real increase supply in productivity of milk and really and critically important to improve the nutrition among here in Ethiopians. (04:10) We definitely are looking very excitedly to work with USAID. (04:21) We know what USAID stands for, to help nations such as Ethiopia to better itself for the young generation of Ethiopia. (04:39) My vision for Chacha is to have some wonderful a lots of milk giving cows for the children in this area grow healthy having had plenty of milk.