U.S. Dairy Export Council’s Post

Hats off to Indonesia! At a time when several governments are regrettably moving toward scaling back dairy in their dietary recommendations or public feeding programs, Indonesia is instead charting a course in the right direction and working to increase dairy consumption given its ample nutritional benefits. They're working to launch a visionary school meals and milk program that will yield tremendous benefits for Indonesian children and make meaningful investments in the country's future human capital. USDEC's Jonathan Gardner and I were over there last week to learn more about it and offer to partner with Indonesia to help ensure the program's success. While in Jakarta we were focused on: 1) advancing work on the Indonesia-U.S. Technical Collaboration Project on Dairy - an initiative USDEC's undertaken at our CEO Krysta Harden's direction to support growth and quality enhancements by Indonesian small scale dairy farmers, and 2) exploring how the U.S. dairy industry can best support the launch of the Indonesian school milk program later this year. It was so refreshing to hear the genuine enthusiasm for dairy from the government officials and industry leaders we met with. It's rightfully a very popular plan in Indonesia: In a recent survey of public opinions on President Prabowo-Gibran’s Economic Programs: Nearly half (48.6%) of respondents said the free lunch and milk program is the most desirable program. Indonesia is one of the top 10 dairy export destinations for the U.S. already; the U.S. is a leading supplier of various dairy ingredients to Indonesian dairy and food manufacturing companies. As Indonesia works to meet its expanded dairy needs for this program both domestically and internationally, the U.S. dairy industry is committed to deepening that existing partnership even further. Here's hoping others take a page out of Indonesia's book and prioritize the unique nutrition dairy can provide to kids! #USDairy #USDEC #GlobalDairy