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EveryCow

Wednesday

Zebu market day at Ambalavao in southern Madagascar, and once a year the day for milk in the world's schools.

Wednesday is one of the two weekly market days at Ambalavao, in the southern highlands of Madagascar, where herders walk their zebu in from the south over several days to sell them. Once a year, on the last Wednesday of September, the Food and Agriculture Organization's World School Milk Day turns the day towards the cup of milk given to children in schools around the world.

The zebu market of Ambalavao

Ambalavao, south of Fianarantsoa, holds one of the largest zebu markets in Madagascar twice a week, usually on Wednesday and Thursday mornings. The animals come from the dry south and west, walked by drovers for days or weeks along cattle trails, and are bought by traders and farmers from the rice-growing highlands. Zebu are central to Malagasy life: they pull carts and trample rice paddies, they are a family's savings, and they are given or sacrificed at funerals and other ceremonies. A herder's standing is measured in the size and quality of his herd.

World School Milk Day

School milk schemes began in Europe and North America in the early twentieth century and now reach many millions of children, from India's midday meals to Thailand, Kenya and Brazil. Since 2000 the Food and Agriculture Organization has asked countries to mark the last Wednesday of September as World School Milk Day, with events in schools, farm visits and talks on how milk is produced. In many places the milk comes from local cooperatives, so the day also links children to the dairy farms around them.

Traditions

  • Ambalavao zebu market: A weekly cattle market in the southern highlands of Madagascar.
  • World School Milk Day: The last Wednesday of September, set by the FAO.

The breeds

ZebuMadagascar's humped cattle, sold at Ambalavao.Holstein FriesianThe breed behind much of the milk in school schemes.

Also part of it, and being written: Jersey cattle (A small dairy breed of many cooperative herds.).

Sources and further reading

About this page

Written by the EveryCow desk with AI assistance. Customs differ by community and family, and are described here as tradition, not instruction. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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