Uzice – These winter days, a young man looking like a rock star is touring the remote villages around Bajina Basta. He comes into the hills, walking a lot as a vehicle can hardly drive through the snowy wastelands. He reaches the remotest households, where he regularly goes into the stables of the local herdsmen. They praise him saying they gain a lot from his knowledge.
Stefan Tomic is the BSc. in livestock engineering, but he is an advisor by profession. His work is unusual – he supports farmers in this area to improve the milk quality since better quality milk brings them more money. He has been hired by the local "Spasojevic Dairy", and he regularly visits 590 contract farmers within the area of Bajina Basta and the surrounding areas.
So, the advisor comes to a house, looks at the barn and ancillary facilities, sees the cows, talks to the dairy farmers and advises them: how to improve the quality, what to do to improve their raw milk, how to make more money out of it. Gone are the days when you could pour all kinds of milk in purchasers’ cans, with water in a white liquid, when more attention was paid to the amount and less to greasy units and health and hygiene.
New regulations, closer to European standards require that agricultural farms improve milk quality (reduce the number of bacteria and somatic cells), otherwise they will not be able to sell it. This will make the dairies prepared for the challenges that the open European market brings to them.
And this whole project has been implemented as part of the activities of Private sector development programme in Southwest Serbia (PSD).
This Programme is financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, and this activity entitled “Improving the quality of traditional dairy products” is implemented by Regional Development Agency “Zlatibor” from Uzice. Director of PSD programme, Darko Djurovic, points out that, in the last ten months, the local farmers have been assisted by introducing advisors to the "Spasojevic Dairy" and AC "Zlatibor". – Thus, farmers obtain higher quality milk and better earnings since the purpose of this business model is to pay for the quality of milk instead of quantity. We supported the dairies financially and organizationally to hire advisors, provided that such an undertaking with Zlatiborski District soon expands across Raski, Moravicki and Kolubarski Districts. In addition to this, in the past year and a half ago, during the implementation of the PSD programme, through activities in tourism and production of traditional products, we have employed more than 200 mostly young people in Southwest Serbia - says Djurovic.
This whole endeavour for better quality milk, of course, is welcomed by dairies, which Radomir Spasojevic, owner of "Spasojevic Dairy" openly states: - It allows me to have a better quality of products that are sold under the brand of "Zapis Tare". Better raw milk produced by contract farmers contributes to our products in terms of their health safety and longer shelf life. Therefore, our contract farmers earn more income by improving the quality of delivered milk - he says.
And judging by the statement of one of the farmers, Miodrag Petkovic, contract farmer of "Spasojevic Dairy", herdsmen themselves are assisted through the work of the advisor: - With his recommendations, the advisor, who has been hired by the dairy, helps us to produce better milk. Thus I create higher profits, so that in the future, I plan to increase the number of dairy cows.
B. Pejovic
