From 24-25 August, the four CGIAR partners involved in this program hosted a stakeholder workshop to review the ideas and premises underlying the proposal.
More information on this blog and the supporting wiki.
CGIAR / Engagement / Fish / Livestock
CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish 
The mega program looks quite promising. A couple of questions remain however.
Does marketing include local marketing? – Small sclae. local marketing may not require as strict hygenic regulations as does marketing intended for cities or export. And smallholder can compete with larger scale production, if they can service a niche market.
Why aren’t breeding programmes and breeding organisation not part of the small scale dairy program? – According to my experience this is a major weakness e.g. in Tanzania, where I studied small scale dairying in the Southern highlands, some years back.
Wolfgang,
On your first question, the goal of the mega program is to improve the value chains where the poor sell and buy their animal source foods, so we want to place much of the emphasis on local marketing. This has been the focus of much of ILRI’s recent work in informal milk markets in East Africa, looking exactly at the types of issues that you mention. That work has shown, for example, that pasteurized milk sold through formal channels exhibits levels of contamination relative to standards as does raw milk sold through informal channels.
On your second question, we see breeding programs as a critical component for supporting smallholder dairy intensification — you will find some text on that in the genetics research description under ‘Technology adaptation and generation’ in the proposal. It hasn’t been forgotten!