The business she built from milk

18/08/2026

Mamura Mingbaeva still wakes up before sunrise to work on her farm in Uzbekistan, just as she has done every day in the past 30 years. In her community, many rural women earn income by selling milk and sour cream, and she also learned milk processing in the family.

These days, though, the rhythm is different.

By 4 a.m., while much of her village in Boʻstonliq district is still asleep, she is already processing milk. In the early hours, before the summer heat fills the house, she prepares kaymak and other dairy products. Later, she joins her husband in the fields, where they grow maize, tomatoes and potatoes for the family. Then she returns home to care for her grandchildren, takes them to kindergarten and manages the household.

Her mornings are still full, but the work is less overwhelming. She produces more, manages orders for local shops, and has more control over her time.

Mamura had done this work for most of her life, never having expected it to change much.

She built her own small business and became known for traditional dairy products such as dried cheese balls, or kurt, clotted cream, or kaymak, and yogurt. Local shop owners came to her directly.

She had buyers, but she lacked the time and equipment to produce more.

New skills for a lifelong craft

At 56, Mamura was using a manual milk separator, turning it by hand for nearly two hours every morning. The work was tiring, and her arms often ached. She also had only one refrigerator. The dairy products she sold were kept there with food for the family, including raw meat. This risked contamination and often altered the taste.

Still, she had no plans to change the way she worked.

But one day, she was invited to attend a training for women dairy producers not far from where she lived.

“I told my husband, ‘I’ve done this all my life. Why go to a training now?' she says. “He told me, ‘Just give it a try. If it’s not useful, you don’t have to keep going.'

She went – and she stayed.

Mamura laughs now when she remembers how reluctant she was. After decades of working with milk, she still found new techniques she could use.

“I thought I was too old to learn,” she says. “Now I see I was just limiting myself.”

In Uzbekistan, women make up nearly 44 percent of the agricultural workforce, often combining farm work, food production and household responsibilities. Many still have limited access to knowledge, equipment, and finance and agricultural services. They also have limited control over land and other productive resources.

The training was part of the Leaving No One Behind project implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), with support from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Türkiye under the FAO–Türkiye Partnership Programme.

In Boʻstonliq district, 48 rural women received training, support and equipment through the project, which focused on dairy production and beekeeping.

During the training, Mamura learned techniques she had never used before. She improved hygiene and the quality of her dairy products and began making sour cream and fruit-flavoured yogurt using methods she could easily apply at home.

After the training, Mamura received an electric milk separator and a refrigerator. The separator reduced the time needed to process milk from nearly two hours to about 35 minutes. In the same amount of time, she can now produce about 10 kg of kurt instead of 5 kg. The refrigerator keeps her products fresh for longer, making them easier to store and sell.

The impetus that made her business grow

She also began managing her work more like a business, calculating production costs, setting prices and planning her production more efficiently.

With higher income and more confidence in her business, Mamura applied for a government-backed loan and bought two more cows – a step she had never imagined before. Today, she has three dairy cows, giving her more milk to process and more products to sell. Her husband, Saghdulla, helps with logistics and day-to-day tasks, but Mamura is the one who runs the business.

Mamura’s family also grows animal feed and food for the household on nearby land. This keeps costs low and gives her greater control over what her cows eat. Her son, a trained veterinarian, helps keep the herd healthy.

She is the only woman in her village who owns dairy cows and makes dairy products from her own milk. While other women also sell kurt or kaymak, they typically buy the milk from other producers.

With these developments, her income has more than tripled. On a good day, she can earn around SUM 1 million (about USD 80). She now reinvests in her business, experiments with new products and decides what to produce and sell.
“If women get the knowledge and the equipment, they can run a business,” she says. “I’m the proof for that.”

Other women began stopping by, including her neighbour Muhabbat. They work with her, ask questions and exchange ideas.

“We help each other,” Mamura says. “If I learn something useful, why would I keep it to myself?”

Even now, Mamura wakes before sunrise to process the milk and tend the fields. Much of her daily routine looks the same as it has for decades, but the way she works has changed. 

With new skills, improved equipment and the confidence to invest, Mamura has transformed decades of hard work into a thriving business that she continues to grow on her own terms. Her higher income is strengthening her family’s livelihood while creating opportunities for other women in her community. When rural women have access to knowledge, technology and investment, they can realize their full potential, with benefits that extend beyond a single business to families, communities and the agricultural sector as a whole.

This story is part of a series celebrating women farmers worldwide, from producers, fishers and pastoralists to traders, agricultural scientists and rural entrepreneurs. The International Year of the Woman Farmer 2026 recognizes their essential contributions to food security, economic prosperity and improved nutrition and livelihoods, despite heavier workloads, less favourable working conditions and unequal access to resources. It calls for collective action and investment to empower women, in all their diversity, and to build a fairer, more inclusive and more sustainable agrifood system for all.