The making of new dairy millionaires in Oyo communities

Mayosore Olatunde Rafiu started rearing cattle in his secondary school days. As a routine, Rafiu would tend to his father’s cattle before and after school. After his secondary school in 2009, he set up a full-fledged agriculture-based enterprise known as Genius Integrated Farms.

Rafiu would wake up as early as 6 am to milk his cattle to get sour milk popularly called ‘nunu’, sour yoghurt known as ‘kindirmo’ or Yoruba cheese called ‘wara’. These were rich in protein and loved by Iseyin people, where Rafiu hails from.

In spite of this preference by Iseyin, located in Oyo State, south-west Nigeria, it was difficult to put prices on these nutritious products. Due to low incomes of the majority of people of the community, Rafiu would sell 150 gram of these drinks at N20 or N30. They were as cheap of a piece of 40 leaves exercise book. He had 35 cows but could not make money from milking them. This continued till 2014 when changes began to occur.

A dairy-making company came to town and encouraged Rafiu to produce enough milk it could use as raw material for the production of liquid and powdered milk.

Before then, much of the raw milk used by dairy companies in Nigeria had been imported from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States and France, among other European countries.

Importation of such an item into Africa’s most populous country was expensive and depended much on the state of the foreign exchange market. As of that time, one dollar exchanged for N199 and volatility was already happening in this market, spelling doom for many manufacturers who relied mainly on imports for their raw materials.

Nigeria was dependent majorly on crude oil for 90 per cent of foreign exchange and 75 percent of its revenue. Crude oil price was dropping and the naira was becoming weaker.

So, local manufacturers knew it was better to start sourcing raw materials locally. This was what brought a Dutch dairy maker FrieslandCampina WAMCO to Iseyin community. The firm had been in a similar business since 2011 in Oyo State but only got to the community three years later.

Since 2014 when the dairy company came to Iseyin, Rafiu has been waking up earlier than 5am to milk his cows and supply raw milk to FrieslandCampina WAMCO. He would use his aluminium kegs to supply tens of litres of raw milk to the company. He gets N100 for each litre and supplies at least 52 litres every day. He now has a ready market for his milk. Rafiu was also able to learn cross-breeding from Dutch farmers who came in from the Netherlands. He now regularly cross-breeds cows brought in by FrieslandCampina with Sokoto or Asha specie.

One big advantage this method has brought to Rafiu is that he is able to get over 60 litres of milk daily. Each of his cows now produces two litres a day as against 1.5 litre before. Hence the herd has become more productive than before.

Agriculture experts define cross-breeding as a method of producing an animal or plant by mating or two different species or breeds. They say that the major advantage of crossbred cattle is that they exhibit the strengths of all breeds from which they descend.

This has been what Rafiu has enjoyed. Currently, he makes at least N6, 000 each day from supplying milk to this company. In one year, he makes more than N2 million from dairy.

“The capacity the company has there is even more than what I can supply,” Rafiu told me during a tour of the farm in the community.

“I used to worry about who would buy milk from me but that worry has gone,” he said.

Rafiu is not the only dairy millionaire in Oyo State. In another village known as Fasola, located in Oyo West Local Government, south-west Nigeria, lives Abdullahi Sadihu, a Fulani herdmen.

Like Rafiu, Sadihu wakes up earlier than 5 am to milk his cows.

Sadihu has 200 cows, six times more than Rafiu’s. He is a Fulani herdsman but does not move his cows about. His cows are all in a farm settlement in Fasola community. He speaks Yoruba, which is the language of the people of the community and other parts of the south-western Nigeria.

Each day, Sadihu supplies 300 to 400 litres of raw milk to FrieslandCampina WAMCO and makes at least N30, 000. He makes at least N10 million each year.

His wife is also involved in the business and supports Sadihu in moving the litres of raw milk in aluminium kegs to the milk collection centre set up by the dairy company in the community.

“The value of milk of a cow is three times that of the cow. Before now all we knew was beef, but now we can stand up and speak like professionals, and our women say they will never be idle again or go back to what they were doing before now,” Sadihu told this writer.

Isa Abdullahi is based in the farm settlement at Maya, another community in Oyo State where dairy making is in vogue. He supplies at least 55 litres of milk to the dairy company, making about N5, 500 every day.

“When I do my calculations at the end of each year, I find that I make more than a million from supplying milk. I never knew that this opportunity could come so quickly,” Addullahi, a Fulain herdsman, said in Hausa.

Nasir Kazeem, who stood as an interpreter, added that he himself supplies at least 50 litres each day.Kazeem said he has been in the business for three years and considers himself a milk millionaire.

Owing to the lucrative nature of this business, which is opening new vistas of opportunities to herdsmen in Oyo, educated professionals are abandoning their trade for milking cows.

Here is Suraj Ajiboye, a computer scientist, who lives in a community known as Maya. Ajiboye has been in the business since 2011 when the dairy makers arrived at the community. Due to the potency of cross breeding and the opportunity provided by FrieslandCampina, Suraj has gone deep into cross-breeding and makes a lot of money from that. He also produces a minimum of 10 litres each day.

“We have become millionaires through supplying milk and our association with FrieslandCampina WAMCO,” he told this writer.

Funke Majaro is a teacher in a secondary school in Oyo State. Majaro, who runs an agro-based firm called F$F Farms, went into cattle rearing not only because she was a farmer’s child but also needed to tap into the opportunity.

“When we were introduced to rearing cows, we didn’t have the intention of collecting milk until we came in contact with FrieslandCampina. They organised artificial insemination and allowed us to cross-breed our cattle in our farm.

“We didn’t know as farmers we could make money from milk, as what we had known before then was to turn it into cheese. But now, we make money. Some of the people here have become millionaires,” she explained to the writer.

The situation is also favouring those in the value chain. Fatima Abu is a Fulani woman who sells milk. Abu does not milk cows but ensures that Fulani people’s cows are sold wherever there is a market. She sometimes moves raw milk out of Oyo State to sell as yoghurt or milk.

“I go to places where there are few cows. I make more money from there,” she said.

Apart from these millionaires, the industry has produced a huge number of small-scale enterprises. A lot of these dairy farmers, especially Fulanis, produce between two and 20 litres daily.

Tijani Olokoto produces just three litres each day. Olokoto makes as little as N300 daily but plans to increase his productivity.

However, he is banking on the realisation of the news that the community is setting up boreholes.

“They are planning to dig boreholes and I hope I can produce up to seven litres when this becomes a reality,” Olokoto said.

A Fulani woman who produces just five litres of milk said the income now helps her provide the basic things of the family.

At another settlement called Akele, Danjuma Anjuru, a smallholder farmer, has 20 local cows.

Apart from the situation just described, the money-making opportunity in these Oyo communities favours Fulanis the most. Before the coming of FrieslandCampina, many Fulani women had no jobs to do. Those who had jobs were merely hawkers in the streets of Oyo.

But Fulani women are now fully engaged in milk production, being the ones in the forefront. They wake earlier than their husbands, prepare meals for their children and move into the field to milk cows. In fact, they have the responsibility of taking raw milk in kegs to milk collection centres. They make their own money and use it to support their husbands.

“Our wives no longer give us trouble again,” said Abdullahi Tijani Jubril, one of the Fulani farmers settled in Iseyin community.

“We used to have issues with them when they were idle or doing little things that gave them small income, but now that they are making money, the trouble is less and is good for the family,” he said.

FrieslandCampina is a Lagos, Nigeria-based Dutch dairy firm. It commenced this programme and christened it Diary Development Programme (DDP) in 2010. FrieslandCampina is currently doing this DDP Programme in five locations in Oyo State: Akele, Fashola, Isheyin, Maya and Saki.

The company brings Fulani herdsmen together and puts them in a particular settlement. These Fulanis speak the local Yoruba language and eat the local food of these communities. They are now part of their communities and teach their children the culture of the Yorubas.

The arrangement has brought relative peace in Oyo State. Fulanis are majorly based in northern Nigeria and across Nigeria, but are mainly nomadic in nature. They move from place to place with their cows and mostly down to the southern part of Nigeria in search of water for the cattle owing to climate change. Some choose to remain in the northern part of the country but in different states.

However, these movements often lead to destruction of farmlands and eating up of farm produce by cows.

In the first week of November this year, a clash between herdsmen and farmers in Ugaga community, Yala Local Government Area of Cross River, left one person dead and several others sustaining various levels of injuries.

Still in the same month, 20 people were killed and several others injured following a clash between farmers and Fulani herdsmen in Numan local government area of Adamawa State.

Many communities have been sacked by such crises, but FrieslandCampina’s model seems to be working in Oyo State.

Another factor that is changing the narrative in dairy making is the marriage between local and Dutch farmers. Dutch farmers come from time to time to teach the local farmers new method of milking and cattle management.

In 2016, Imke de Boer, professor of animal science, Wageningen University, the Netherlands, and Janine Luten, managing director of Wageningen Academy came into Fasola and Iseyin communities.

This year, Gerben Smeenk and Herman Bakhius came in from the Netherlands to tutor local farmers on cross-breeding, artificial insemination, accounting, and cattle management.

Aisat Ibrahim, a Fulani woman, is happy that the Dutch farmers, who spent two weeks with her and others, have helped increase productivity.

“I learnt cross-breeding. Before, I used to produce 10 litres but now I have raised my production to 20 litres,” Ibrahim, who spoke in Yoruba, said.

Olatunde Rafiu, earlier cited, said the Dutch farmers taught him and others that it is possible to make much more money in the business through

“They gave us their technical experience. They taught us pasture management and cow signals. They also introduced us to their input suppliers. They taught us how to feed the animals so that they will develop very well. They, in fact, tutored on pasture management, thatis, the type of feed cows need to develop faster,” Rafiu said.

“We also started improving the genetics of our breeds, as much cross-breeding taking place,” he stated.

ODINAKA ANUDU