Dairy diplomacy as Australian heifers touch down in Indonesia

Indonesia’s President wants to feed nutritious lunches – with a daily drop of dairy – to the country’s schoolchildren. Australian dairy cattle have been sent to help.

Fifty dairy cows have been flown from Sydney to Jakarta to provide milk as part of Indonesia’s school lunch policy.

Fifty dairy cows flown to Jakarta are the first Australian cattle to be exported to Indonesia as part of President Prabowo Subianto’s free school lunch program.

The in-calf heifers were loaded aboard a plane at Sydney airport on Tuesday for the journey to the Indonesian capital and their eventual destination on the island of Sumatra.

The newly elected Mr Prabowo has vowed to reduce malnutrition among the nation’s children by offering free lunches – including a box of milk – to its school students and pregnant women.

To meet the demand and feed the country’s estimated 83 million children, Indonesia needs more dairy cows and to improve the genetics of its existing herd.

Consolidated Pastoral Company and its Indonesian joint venture company JJAA, with whom they usually export live beef cattle from CPC’s northern Australian cattle stations, answered the call and sent the consignment of holstein friesian dairy heifers to their farm in Sumatra.

“Indonesia’s President Prabowo has been very clear that he wants to do all he can to eliminate childhood stunting and malnutrition,” CPC chief executive officer Troy Setter said.

“Indonesia still has a significant challenge with 22 per cent of children suffering from stunting due to nutritional shortfalls due to lack of quality protein and total calories in their diet.

“We take our social responsibility very seriously. We already supply more than five million Indonesian people a year with their beef and offal needs from cattle fed in Indonesia and this creates a significant amount of employment in Australia and Indonesia.”

Mr Setter said the demand for the dairy cows showed how tastes and diets had changed in Indonesia and the company would now help to train local farmers how to ­successfully produce beef and milk in Indonesia. This also offered ­opportunities for Australian businesses.

The cattle arrived safely. Picture: CPC

“JJAA operated a small modern dairy in Indonesia 10 years ago, however, we were too early for the local fresh milk market that has developed in recent years and now we have the President’s commitment to use fresh Indonesian milk as a key part of his commitment to reduce childhood stunting and malnutrition,” Mr Setter said.

“There was significant learning from this dairy program 10 years ago that is not wasted and that we will share with local farmers and governments, as well as from the refurbishment of our dairy in Lampung and starting to milk again.

“There are significant opportunities and responsibilities for Australia with our closest neighbour and strategic partner Indonesia.”

After touchdown, the cattle were greeted by Indonesian government officials before they were vaccinated against foot-and-mouth disease and lumpy skin disease and loaded into trucks and on to a ferry for the short boat trip to Sumatra and their eventual destination at a feedlot in Lampung.

Among the officials was Indonesia’s Director-General of Livestock and Animal Health Agung Suganda, who said the government had a target to add one million dairy cows to its national herd in the next five years.

“The arrival of pregnant dairy cows is a manifestation of the real commitment of the private sector to play a role in accelerating investment in Indonesia,” Mr Agung said.

“We hope that this step can be an example for other investors to contribute to the development of the livestock sub-sector.”