Strengthening the Dairy Value Chain in Bangladesh

Many of us dream of a world free of poverty, but how can this be realistically achieved, especially for farmers who make up the majority of the world’s poor?1 Traditional aid redistributes resources to many who are in need, but too often falls short of allowing poor producers to increase their productivity and reduce income poverty in a self-reliant and sustainable way.2 CARE has pursued a route different from traditional aid approaches. Simultaneously working with smallholder farmers—mostly women—to improve their productivity and working with others within the entire market system to ensure that incomes are distributed as fairly as possible, CARE has put farmers, markets, and incentives at the center of its work. CARE has taken a value chain approach—one that focuses on working with farmers, companies, traders, and entrepreneurs end to end along a commodity’s chain—to remove obstacles and to improve the creation and distribution of value. A value chain approach (also known as value chain facilitation, inclusive market development, or pro-poor value chain development) works with market forces and commercial value chain actors to grow the economic pie and ensure that all parties, especially the most vulnerable, have as much information and market power as possible.