DSP Egypt Chapter established – Dairy Science Park

(Picture credit: Leading Egyptian dairy farm championing feed self-sufficiency; Feed Navigator, 16-Jul-2019 By Jane Byrne)

Dairy Science Park Egypt Chapter (DSP-EC) was established with the notification of an Executive Committee headed by Prof Saber Abd-Allah, Focal Point DSP (Egypt), Beni-Suef University and represented by members from the ASRT, the Academia, Quality Assurance and ARC Giza. The Committee was established as a component of Dairy Science Park, Peshawar Pakistan, established for generating decent employment and exportable surpluses across the Food Value Chain. DSP was registered as a Society with the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and accepted by the United Nations as #SDGAction40154.

The ASL 2050, 2017 Consultancy concluded as follows. This common understanding of livestock production systems will support multi-sectoral and multidisciplinary dialogue among stakeholders to appreciate the production, public health and environmental dimensions of livestock and the formulation of coherent and effective sector’s policies and investments.

USDA-FAS 2021 Report on Livestock and Products Annual reveals that Egypt’s national herd is largely composed of bovine dairy cattle (Bos taurus) and domestic water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis), split in a ratio of 55 to 45 percent, 4.7 and 3.8 million heads, respectively. Between November 2019 and February 2020, Egypt imported over 4,700 head of U.S. Holsteins dairy cattle.

Animal production complex has been established in Yousuf El-Siddiq city in Fayoum. According to the directives of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, in the framework of the state’s efforts to develop animal wealth and maximise its products and in coordination with the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, the National Service Products Organization has planned to implement several integrated projects in this field and complementary activities related to them. These projects are represented in the establishment of several farms for breeding and stall-feeding cattle and other farms for raising livestock for dairy production and the creation of modern integrated automatic abattoirs in addition to factories for various dairy and meat.

Veterinarhy faculties have been working in various universities of Egypt, imparting education in animal health and production. These need to be integrated with the industry and government policies, aimed at development and replication of entrepreneurship models across livestock value chain.

The Egyptian Cabinet-IDSC issued Policy Perspective, The Egyptian SME’s Force Field Analysis 2020 in June 2021. They recommended that Entrepreneurs should hold accurate information among key stakeholders to maintain their confidence. Moreover, they must focus on supply chain assessment and risk management to utilise alternative modes of transportation and do trade-offs based upon needs, cost, service, and risk analysis possibilities. Finally, they should identify the components and raw materials which have the highest impact on their revenue streams.

Dr Abdul Rahman Ilyas, Advisor to ASRT President, Government of Egypt for Technology Innovations and Collaborations, desired establishing Dairy Science Cairo (DSPC), a joint project of Academy for Scientific Research and Technology (ASRT) and Dairy Science Park Peshawar Pakistan. He is the co-founder of DSP alongwith Prof M Subhan Qureshi. Dr Amr Faroukh Abdelkhalik Vice President and Mahmoud Sakr President ASRT have endorsed the proposal.

An MoU will be signed shortly between DSP and ASRT for establishin DSPC. Based upon the experience of the DSP under Good Governance and Policy Reforms (2011-2023) suggesting two technoparks under FAO-UN and ITC-UN national consultancies, Dairy Science Park Cairo (DSPC) will be established as an autonomous regulatory, financial and marketing authority, run by a Board of Governors representing all the stakeholders and an Endowment Fund. DSPC will support the public sector organisations as facilitators and the academia in generation of feasible entrepreneurship models across the Livestock based Value Chain (LBVC). The Major task of DSPC would be generation of decent employment and exportable hygienic/Halal certified food and biotech products.

Roadmap for Dairy Science Park Cairo (DSPC)

Creating a bridge among academia,industry and government agencies, focused at commercialization of the livestock resourcebase
Identifying feasible entrepreneurship models (EMs) generated at the academia and fine tuning for replication in the field through Expert Groups (EGs)
Motivating students of animal health, production, products processing, marketing, food technology, business management, public health and biorisk management, halal foods certification, local trade, imports and export, in entrepreneurship development
Engaging training and and facilitating students in entrepreneurship development under an Endowment Fund (EF), a Learning Management System (LMS) platform available at Livestock Entrepreneurship Development Centers (LEDC) at various locations and Business Incubation Centre (BIC) at Animal production complex in Yousuf El-Siddiq in the city of Fayoum
Registering successful EMs as private companies
Approaching larger companies for their linkage with the academia to provide solutions to the industrial issues, especially quality control and export-related and with the small and medium farmers for providing raw materials for dairy, meat and biotech production
Introducing advanced research through Centres of Excellence (CoE):
- CoE for Genetics of Animal Production and Health (CEGAPH), to conduct applied research in genetic improvement for economic and survival traits of the indigenous livestock/poultry species and enhancing entrepreneurship potential through protocols development
- ii) CoE for Biology & Entrepreneurship of Livestock (CEBEL) to integrate the biological knowledge of animal health, management, nutrition, breeding and reproduction with the entrepreneurship development potential across the livestock breeding value chain (LBVC)
Establishing linkages with similar science parks/technoparks in the region and at international level for experience/resource sharing.