In town for the seventh multi-stakeholder partnership of the Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock meeting in the capital, Ren Wang, the assistant director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) unveiled unexpected plan for the Sululta based, Elemtu Integrated Milk Industry SC.
“I have a vision I want to share with you and your team,” Ren told Belachew Hurisa, the Director General of Elemtu. “I want to help you start a conversation with a China-based enterprise to help your company use drones, when transporting raw materials from farmers to your company.”
Belachew who gave a passionate presentation of the company’s strategic plan accepted the offer as long as it followed government guidelines as he described the challenge of the 2-year old company. “We have many challenges to expand and sustain our growth”, he said. “We need resources and we are open to foreign investment and we lack the technological know-how,” he said.
The assistant director general, who was joined by the country director of FAO also mentioned how the Government of Zambia is seriously looking at his plan as well.
The company; worth 60 million birr has staff of about 100 full-time employees. It was founded by local and diaspora investors, along with the likes of the Oromia International Bank in 2015 after long delays. It sold shares at 500 birr a share as it attempted to raise its capital.
It was constructed by a Bulgarian company, Nikos. It sources all its raw products from local farmers and processes it as its state-of-the-art facility. Located on a colossal plot land, it has a capacity of producing up to 15,000 liters of milk a day.
Belachew, a noted Ethiopian livestock expert, had recently called on the Government of Ethiopia to help implement a legal framework to regulate the use of low quality milk within the industry.
