Success Stories from Our Members in the field

Ukrainian Farmers 'Got Milk', Citizens Network for Foreign Affairs

Ten years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine is still struggling with the transition from a "command economy" to one that is driven by the dynamics of the marketplace. That's why the Citizens Network for Foreign Affairs, an American nongovernmental organization, has worked with dairy farmers in Ukraine to build market-based networks outside government control.

The result is a strong dairy industry that lifts living standards in a nation with vast, untapped resources and significant influence over the course of relations between American and the former Soviet Union.

The fledgling Ukrainian government resisted land reform in the 1990s, attempting to manipulate markets by controlling price and supply. To help emerging private farmers meet the nation's growing food demand, the Citizen's Network for Foreign Affairs found ways to link private dairy farmers to local and regional cash markets beyond governmental influence. Its partners included American food distributors and Ukrainian farmers' organizations.

Between 1996 and 2000, CNFA helped establish 36 milk collection stations in Lviv, Odessa, and Charkasy provinces. These enterprises, which paid cash to roughly 5,000 private dairy farmers, raised incomes of participants by as much as 250 percent, or an average of $300, in the first year. The added volume of raw milk increased profits and enabled the dairies to create over 100 new jobs.

As the demand for milk cows increased, the value of the farmers' assets more than doubled. The Ukrainian dairy project became self-sustaining, adding 170 additional milk collection stations since CNFA ended its involvement in December 2000. The old adage rings true: "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime."