I posted a not-quiteag-post on gtinn earlier but I also wanted to address the Ag component of these girls'/interns' visit. While I still don't entirely understand the purpose of their visit (when i get ambiguous answers it makes me think they don't know what they are doing either) I did get that they want to "help" small Azeri dairy processor make European style hard cheeses. When i heard that first thing that popped into my head was "Do Azeri's really like hard cheeses that much?" a question that I know the answer to, they like it ok but their prefer their own cheese. Their visit quickly started to sound naïve, and more naive the more I heard about how they wanted to focus on small dairy processors and selling locally (or exporting) etc, now I will proceed to poke a few holes into their politically correct line of reasoning (admitting that their cheapness has tainted my personal few of these two):
Many rural cultures are not open to foreign foods. This statement reminds me of a bill board I saw in the US, it was an advertisement for “down home/country cooking” and it has some Marlboro man type character saying “Sushi? Raw fish?! Where I come from we call that fishing bait!” testimony to the lack of acceptance of foreign foods. While I don’t think the reaction to hard cheeses in rural Azerbaijan would be quite so vitriolic I don’t see them just loving it either.
“Small farmers small businesses, go local!” While the sentiment is admirable it is not always logical. In the US and especially in Europe and definitely Japan farmers are (generally speaking) more sophisticated and if they were to change their businesses (say from soft cheeses to hard cheeses) they would probably be able to adapt. That degree of dynamism is lacking in second and third world countries; I don’t think rural Azerbaijan is an exception. I learned from talking with one of my friend’s mothers (who raises [raised?] goats) that making hard cheese is more difficult than making soft cheese, which is probably a factor in why I think I have seen more soft cheeses in developing countries (those that eat cheese). Assuming that you can instill an understanding of sanitation in addition to technical understanding of making hard cheeses in addition to cultivating a widespread taste for hard cheese just sounds a bit green to me (from the development point of view).
One of the points the two visitors used as justification for making hard cheese is “exportability”, it is indeed easier to transport hard cheeses since they are denser and keep better/longer than softer cheeses so this is a valid point. The thing is, are these small village processors really going to be exporting their cheeses even across Azerbaijan not to mention to other countries? The answer is probably not. I have seen one example of a local processor who occasionally exports to Russia (an easier market to be sure considering corruption and lax sanitation standards) but this person is still 2-3 times larger than the second largest processor in the region… So whether they plan to have it sold in Azerbaijan or exported somewhere else I just can’t see it happening.
I suppose there are other points but the above is what popped into my head first.
