MILK COLLECTION CENTER PROVIDES WAR WIDOW A STEADY INCOME

KORENICA, Kosovo - Taking a rare pause from running the milk collection center in this rural village, Hatixhe Binaku reflects on how far she has come since the 1998-99 war left her a destitute widow with two small children to feed. I never would have been able to imagine this, says Binaku, whose USAIDsupported center gathers milk produced by a dozen other farmers for bulk sale to a local dairy processor. We are much, much better off.
Photo: USAID Williams

Hatixhe Binaku checks in on her cows, grazing on leased pasture in the village of Korenica, Kosovo, in this Oct. 29, 2012.

Binaku lost her husband, Avni, to a wartime massacre that left Korenica all but empty of men. In the immediate aftermath of the war, international donors provided the village women with trauma counseling and, later, a small herd of dairy cows. As the women pieced their lives back together, they began selling milk door-to-door. In 2007, USAID stepped in and helped establish the milk collection center, providing a lacto-freezer, for the cooling and temporary storage of milk, and a generator, along with occasional veterinarian services and animal feed during drought conditions. The center allows the contributing farmers to sell their milk on a commercial scale, assuring them of a dependable income. Its provided us with hope, Binaku says simply.

Avni Binaku, age 2, enjoys fresh milk produced by his grandmother Hatixhe Binakus cows. Each cow produces 20 to 30 liters of milk a day, providing a muchneeded income stream.

Photo: USAID Williams

Today, the women sell 400 to 800 liters of milk each day through the center to the Golaj dairy, in the nearby village of Sheremet. We buy whatever they can produce, dairy manager Bexhet Gola says. Each liter of milk earns the farmers about 0.30 (39), or enough to provide a decent income. Slowly, but steadily, the local dairy herd has grown in size. Binaku herself has kept as many as 12 cows, leveraging bank loans and the profits from the sale of male calves to add heifers. After feed prices recently spiked, she shrank her herd to just six cows, which she turned out on a recent and unseasonably warm fall day to graze on leased pasture.

U.S. Agency for International Development www.usaid.gov

However, Binaku does not sell all the milk her cows produce. Some Binaku pasteurizes on the woodstove for her 2-year-old grandson, Avni, named for her late husband. His bottle never far, Avni drinks two liters of milk a day. My Avni was tall, Binaku says. I hope he will grow up to be tall too.