Promoting local milk production with FrieslandCampina WAMCO model

Abdullahi Sadihu rose up as early as 5 am on September 26 at a farm settlement in Fashola, a village located in Oyo West Local Government, south-west Nigeria.

Sadihu spent the next hour milking his 200 cows. The cows felt relaxed. Unlike other herdsmen who would move with their cows from one farm to another in search of pasture, Sadihu’s cows were now settled in Fashola, where most things were provided.

Few minutes later, Sadihu, his wife and 12 other women had over 20 aluminium cans full of milk. These cans were moved to a 7000 litre-capacity milk collection centre built within the settlement by a Nigerian dairy company known as FrieslandCampina WAMCO.

The milk cans were handed over to Adekunle Olayiwola John, FrieslandCampina WAMCO’s milk collection manager in the settlement, who ran a coagulation test to determine whether or not the milk was still fresh. The milk passed this stage. Next was the resazurin or quality test. It passed this stage too. Other tests such as the antibiotic and adulteration tests were run and the milk was certified fit for other processes. Salihu and other women were now free to go, but not until they collecting their N90 per litre.

“The point is that they already know whether the milk will pass the tests or not,” John explained to this newspaper during the factory tour.

“Milk rejections have fallen from eight percent to 1.2 percent, and we expect it will come down to zero,” he said.

“On our part we train these farmers on the best practices. Some of the farmers can boast of 300 to 400 litres of milk each day,” he added.

FrieslandCampina WAMCO has shown an unprecedented interest in local input preference in dairy production in Nigeria.  The diary firm, which has its roots in the Netherlands, commenced the Diary Development Programme (DDP) in Nigeria in 2010. The company’s model has been unique: Get the Fulani herdsmen together in a particular settlement, train them on the best farming practices, support them with basic amenities, provide education to them and their children, and then guarantee a ready-market for them. This creates a lot of jobs for Nigerians, especially the youth, and reduces perennial conflict between herdsmen and farmers. For a country whose local input content in dairy industry is still less than 10 percent and which is seeking economic recovery from recession, this model is timely.

Dairy farmers told this newspaper that the programme had enabled them to make a lot of money from their business.

“The value of the 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 go back to what they were doing before now,” Sadihu told BusinessDay’s Real Sector Watch.

FrieslandCampina is currently doing this DDP Programme in four locations in Oyo State: Akele, Fashola, Isheyin and Maya. This newspaper observed that the company would often crossbreed the local cows with Asian breeds to improve milk production.

Analysts such as Ike Ibeabuchi, CEO of MD Services Limited, said this model remained the best at the recession period when many dairy manufacturers were seeking foreign exchange to import raw milk.

At Fashola Settlement, Abdullahi Tijani, the Fulani community leader, said his people were in dire need of   good roads and boreholes, stressing the need to ensure that all Fulani herdsmen and their children get good formal education.

At another settlement called Isheyin, a smallholder farmer, who was supported by FrieslandCampina WAMCO, said he had 35 local cows each of which produced about 1.5 litres each day.

“What we do is that we buy some seeds from South Africa to ensure our cows do not lack the necessary nutrients,” said Mayosore Rafiu Olatunde, owner of the farm known as Genius Integrated Farms.

Olatunde said the firm needed a more effective cross-breeding method to ensure the cows produce more and better milk.  At Maya, which was FrieslandCampina’s newest milk centre, the automated milk collection plant had up to 12,000-litre capacity.

One key feature of the company’s DDP Programme is its support for young graduates who have the courage to go into smallholder farming.

“What we have done is that the Fulani have their cows and we work with them,” explained Lawrence Ohue Inegbenoise, dairy development/ research &development manager for FrieslandCampina WAMCO.

“There are two ways to do this: We can say, let’s go into farming and start with 5,000 cows. But this does not solve unemployment problem in the country. But now we are working with the Fulani who have their cows. The next step is to have a crop of young graduates that are trained in smallholder dairy farming.  We will have them in clusters—about 10 of them in a cluster—and they will share resources such as power, water, farm implements,” Inegbenoise said.

Explaining further, Ore Famurewa, corporate affairs director of the dairy firm, said the company already had 2000 farmers, adding that it was a form of women empowerment.

“Bill &Melinda read about the project and sent representatives. They were impressed when they came, and they want to be our partner. They believe that this model can work for the entire country. We believe we have to support local raw milk production in Nigeria,” said Famurewa.

Two visitors came from the Netherlands to have a firsthand look at the model.

“I am very impressed with what I saw and the level of investments FrieslandCampina made and in trying to grow with the local community,” said  Imke de Boer, professor of animal science, Wageningen University, the Netherlands, who came to see  how best to partner with the dairy company.

“What we can do is to share knowledge in collaboration with the local people,”   Imke de Boer said.

Janine Luten, MD, Wageningen Academy, said she was involved in such projects in China, adding that there could be an exchange programme between Nigerian dairy farmers and her academy in the future.

 

ODINAKA ANUDU

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