VZCZCXYZ0000
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHGB #3681/01 3261354
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 211354Z NOV 08
FM AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0491
INFO RUCNRAQ/IRAQ COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS BAGHDAD 003681 
 
SIPDIS 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EINV ECON ETRD IZ
SUBJECT: ANBAR:  THE COWS COME HOME 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED - PLEASE PROTECT ACCORDINGLY. 
 
¶1. (U) This is a PRT Anbar reporting cable. 
 
¶2. (U) Summary:  Respected women in the community pitched a plan to 
form a women's cooperative for dairy products to help widows and 
divorcees in the Anbar province, in an effort to raise up this 
marginalized sector of society that is considered particularly 
vulnerable to insurgent activity.  Their plan provides rural widows 
with cows to allow them to sell milk to a dairy factory in town run 
by other women.  MNF-W approved their proposal and began helping put 
the plan in action.  Land O' Lakes visited the Anbar province to 
assess the value chain for dairy products and resolved to help stand 
up the dairy factory.  With the help of the Anbar PRT and Fallujah 
ePRT, fifty cows were purchased from local farmers to launch the 
project.  End Summary. 
 
A Project by Anbari Women for Anbari Women 
------------------------------------------ 
 
¶3. (U)  the leaders of a.  In Spring of 2008, the civil society 
organization Women's Cultural Center of Fallujah pitched a plan to 
form a women's cooperative for dairy products to help widows and 
divorcees in the Anbar province, in an effort to raise up this 
marginalized sector of society that is considered particularly 
vulnerable to insurgent activity. The plan was to buy 50 cows, 
distributing one cow to each of 50 widows with enough land to 
sustain it and then building a factory in the city to produce cheese 
and butter and other dairy products.  The milk is to be sold by the 
widows who live in the rural areas to the factory that will be run 
by the women in the city who need income. Together these leaders 
worked with the Marines of G9 and, with the support of the Anbar PRT 
and the Fallujah ePRT, were able to launch this project. 
 
¶4. (U) Critical to the long-term success of the project was the 
support of local sheikhs who want to encourage the widows toward 
self-sufficiency and integration back into society.  The widow 
pension system is broken and, culturally, supporting the widows is 
the sheikhs' responsibility, which they can't do as well as in the 
past because they are overextended. 
 
Logistics 
--------------- 
 
¶5. (U) The Marines turned to a veterinarian stationed at Camp Ramadi 
to develop a plan that incorporated as many contingencies as 
possible, including testing for diseases like tuberculosis, 
overcoming nutritional challenges for the cows and providing 
training for the women on updated agricultural practices and 
adequate veterinary care.  The veterinarian met with the provincial 
DG of Veterinary Medicine to determine the best breed of cow for the 
widows.  They decided a mixed breed cow - part Friesen from Holland 
and part Iraqi - would be ideal because Friesens produce a lot of 
milk but the Iraqi genetics were needed to help them endure the 
weather.  The age of the cow, its likelihood to be or become 
pregnant and the age of its calves were also factors to consider. 
 
¶6. (U) Outside help was needed to stand up the dairy factory and the 
Marines invited executives from Land 'O Lakes to visit Fallujah. 
They conducted a feasibility study and an assessment of the dairy 
sector value chain from the farm to the market during their trip. 
They found a high demand for local dairy products in the urban areas 
and very little supply.  Currently the dairy products available to 
consumers are imported.  Imported products are more expensive and, 
because of transportation challenges, many of the products become 
spoiled before they arrive.  In fact, milk that is collected in the 
area used to be sold to a milk collection facility in Fallujah. 
But, it was closed after being damaged in the war and won't reopen 
until scheduled CERP reconstruction is complete.  Local milk is now 
sent to Abu Ghraib for dairy products sold to the Baghdad market. 
These findings reinforced the assumptions that a women's dairy 
products co-op could be successful in this area. 
 
¶7. (U) The Land O' Lakes executives agreed to help build the dairy 
factory.  It is important to note that Land O' Lakes will not be 
building the factory with their own income.  Rather, they will 
obtain a grant to build the factory and provide training to the 
women.  Once the widows in the rural area are educated about 
nutritional feeding and veterinary care and are enabled to overcome 
infrastructure challenges such as adequate water and electricity, 
and once the women in the city are trained on how to run a factory 
(bookkeeping, machine maintenance, marketing and management), then 
Land O' Lakes will remove themselves from the grant implementation 
program and the Anbari women's co-op will own the dairy factory. 
 
Got Milk? 
--------- 
 
¶8. (U) The next step in the plan required further collaboration 
between the Marines, the Anbar PRT and the ePRT in Fallujah.  With 
$67,500 in CERP funds to kick-start the project, an amount 
sufficient to buy 50 cows for an average price of $1000 each with 
additional funds for transportation and winter feed, representatives 
from each of these teams, including a USAID representative who 
practices veterinary medicine, visited the livestock exchange in 
Saqlawiyah.  There they identified 14 cows that met the project 
criteria and were determined to be sufficiently healthy to produce 
milk. 
 
¶9. (U).  With just a few days to arrange for the purchase of the 
remaining cows, team members of PRT Anbar and ePRT Fallujah worked 
together with their local contacts to find 34 more cows that passed 
the veterinary health assessment and could be purchased for 
near-market prices.  Two additional cows, for a total of 50, were 
purchased by the CSO leaders and reimbursed with CERP funds.  A QRF 
grant will provide supplemental funds for initial veterinary care. 
 
¶10. (U) MNF-W originally committed CERP funds for this project 
because the commanding general supported a concept developed by 
women for women that would be accomplished through women.  Now the 
ePRT in Fallujah is considering building on the project to help more 
widows in the area.  Together the Marines of G9, the Anbar PRT and 
the Fallujah ePRT all helped launch the women's co-op - a relatively 
small project that is now on its way to making a big difference in 
the lives of many in the province. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶11. (SBU) In a tragic turn of events, as the team was purchasing 
cows at the livestock exchange, a local widow, unrelated to this 
project, strapped a bomb to herself and detonated it at the entrance 
of a hospital in Fallujah, killing herself, four others and severely 
wounding five more.  The attack was a brutal reminder about how 
important it is to find opportunities to re-integrate these widows 
into society and how valuable a project like the women's dairy co-op 
can be to sustaining peace in Anbar.  End Comment. 
 
CROCKER