Can the government reform the struggling DDC?

The state-owned enterprise has long been in the red. Turning it around won’t be easy.

On Saturday, Prime Minister Balendra Shah posted a photo of himself eating a cube of cheese, alongside a plate of cheese cubes and a packet of yak cheese, on his social media accounts, captioned “Say Cheese. DDC ko Cheese”. He was promoting the cheese produced by the state-owned Dairy Development Corporation. The premier’s post alone did more to promote yak cheese than years of successive governments’ efforts. The demand for the cheese had been boosted by 30 percent the following day, as the public rushed to buy yak cheese to imitate Shah on social media. The product went out of stock at major supermarkets in the Kathmandu Valley, and the corporation even supplied additional quantities of the stuff. A single post from the country’s popular prime minister drove a cheese craze, offering hopes (if faint) of reform in Nepal’s dairy sector, which has long been under strain.