Morelos Trains More Than 300 Women in Artisan Cheese-making

The training programme is coordinated at state level by Fernando Aguirre and is being carried out with the Institute for Labour Training of Morelos, the Secretariat of Agricultural Development, economic-development agencies and local livestock associations.

Participants are being taught to make several types of dairy products, including fresh cheeses, pasta-filata varieties and speciality cheeses. The instruction also includes food-safety procedures, good manufacturing practices, yield monitoring, packaging and basic marketing.

The initiative is intended to address difficulties faced by small and medium-sized livestock producers in selling liquid milk in parts of Morelos. Under the programme’s model, milk from rural milking units is channelled to processing workshops run by trained women. The organisers describe this as a way to increase the value generated from each litre and limit the role of intermediaries.

The project also supports the creation of small businesses in rural and peri-urban communities, where the available employment options are described as limited. Participants organise production and sales networks and sell their goods through nearby markets, local fairs and small shops.

By linking dairy producers, training institutions and community businesses, the programme seeks to strengthen the use of Morelos’s dairy-producing area and develop a regional range of processed dairy products. The initiative’s organisers say the products are being made under defined quality standards and with a regional identity.

They plan to extend the workshop cycles to additional parts of the state and to build a network of technically equipped artisan cheese-making businesses. The current training has already reached women from 12 municipalities, while the proposed expansion would cover further municipalities in Morelos.