With the support of the FAO Integrated Dairy Development project in Herat Province, farmers of primary cooperatives in Enjil, Guzara and Karokh districts have been organised into a higher level cooperative structure called the Herat Livestock Development Union (HLDU). This is the first livestock development union in Herat, and the fourth union established in the country in close collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL), FAO and the farmers. This new Herat Livestock Development Union comprises of six primary cooperative societies with a total membership of 834 farmers. The Herat Livestock Development Union was registered with the Agricultural Cooperative Department of MAIL on 4th March 2008. The FAO Herat integrated dairy project started its activities since May 2007 and is funded by Government of Italy under a bilateral trust fund.

The project is supporting the farmers to improve their production and productivity at the farm level through integrated support activities such as improvement in animal health, feeding, housing and management, and linking their production to the market for improved family income. In addition, the dairy union will be supported in setting up an appropriate plant for processing locally produced milk as a means of adding value for better economic returns to farmers.

Upon the request of union, Herat industrial Park management has allocated 2.5 Jeribs land (0.5 hectare) for establishing a dairy plant in phase-I, and is now in the process of legal registration with the government. The total cost of land is Afs 308,000 (~US $ 6200.00), which will be paid by the union member farmers.

The Kabul Dairy Union was the first dairy union established in Afghanistan with FAO support in November 2006, followed by the Kunduz Dairy Union and the Balkh Livestock Development Union (BLDU) in 2007. These three unions have all together 15 primary cooperative societies as the members. In 2007, the three unions collected 2.2 million litres of milk, and paid Afs 31 million to the farmers compared to the total business income of Afs 42.5 million