Key Performance Indicators to Diagnose Poor Farm Performance and Profitability of Smallholder Dairy Farmers in Asia (Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION Throughout the tropics, smallholder dairy farming was established as part of social welfare and rural development schemes, to provide a regular cash flow for poorly resourced and often landless farmers. Now it is an established industry in most countries thus requiring a more business-minded approach to farm management. Not only does locally produced raw milk replace imported dairy products, it provides some degree of national food security to counteract the vagrancies of the current global financial and politically unstable world in which we live (APHCA, 2007). Dairy consumption in Asia has more than doubled over the last 25 years, and this has led to more than 50% of the world's total dairy imports now entering Asian markets (FAOSTAT, 2008). Consequently, dairy development programs attain high priority in most Asian countries (Dudgill and Morgan, 2008).