Policy proposals to increase milk and dairy consumption in Iran based on a scoping review

During the last decade, the consumption of dairy products in Iranian households has been decreased and has reached about 164 grams per day, which is a long way from the recommendations of the "Iranian desirable food basket" to consume 250 grams of dairy products per day. A range of different factors such as food supply, food accessibility and food choices affect the consumption of milk and dairy products, and these factors in turn are affected by the policies adopted in the production, processing, distribution and consumption of these products. In the present scoping review study, the policies of production, processing, distribution and consumption of milk and dairy products, in Iran as well as many other countries, were searched using appropriate keywords. Production policies were classified into five categories of risk management policies and tools, including non-price and price protection policy tools, reducing the cost of capital and inputs, supporting domestic market prices, direct payments to farmers, and improving the business environment for agriculture. Consumption policies were also classified into five categories: policies affecting prices, food aid programs, food preparation and delivery, food promotion programs, and food labeling, and the effectiveness of each policy based on existing studies were reviewed. Then, according to the identified problems and the effectiveness of different policies and study findings, a set of effective policies on improving the per capita consumption of milk and dairy products was proposed.