FrieslandCampina WAMCO, is setting aside over N3 billion to buy milk produced by farmers in Nigeria this year.
The company spent about N2 billion for 5 million liters of milk produced locally in 2022 as part of its dairy development initiative.
During a coordinated tour of its farm by journalists at its development farm projects in Iseyin in Ondo state, Milk Collection manager, at the company’s Milk Collection center, MCC, in Maya, Mr. Balogun Kayode, said the center during peak period handles 10,000 liters of milk collection a day.
Kayode said, the 12,000 liters the day capacity center has helped to build farmers capacity, and that the company has also established other collection centers across the country.
He explained that the company’s dairy development activities focuses on working with pastoralists, small holder dairy farmers and commercial farmers.
The programme aims to make dairy farming more attractive to the next generation of farmers, thereby making the sector more sustainable and curbing incessant farmer-herder violence.
Pastoral land scarcity pushes herders into protected areas, farmlands and increases their dependence on nominally illicit practices such as tree branch lopping.
Kayode said, FrieslandCampina WAMCO’s Dairy Development currently operates in various communities across the country, including: Oyo, Osun, Ogun, Kwara and Niger states.
Speaking further on the firms vision of dairy development, he said the company aims to grow dairy value chains from farm to business by leveraging on its expertise and tailoring it to the local situation.
The company is also striving to let all dairy players in the chain win with fresh milk and in that way, contribute to food security, a more sustainable milk production and raising the living standards of the dairy farmers from whom they collect milk.
Equally, the company is targeting to attract huge investment through dairy development to boost the country’s economy.
Kayode said that the the company’s intervention through the dairy development initiative, local farmers are supported in the production of milk (yield per cow improvement), improving milk quality and hygiene, feeding, breeding and farm management.
The locally sourced milk from these farmers is collected through own Milk Collection network, then transported to the WAMCO processing facility where it is processed into Peak Yoghurt and recombined products in evaporated milk, he added.
This is line with its grass to glass philosophy which seeks to ensure quality from the grass the cows feed on to the glass of milk taken by our consumers.
At the Fashola farm, Mr. Isaac Kamau, said the company has trained over 12,000 farmers to increase their yield by adopting best practices.
Expatiating, on the initiative, Kamau,,said the dairy development is a distinctive model for applying the theory of “creating shared value” with an array of community activities, encouraging local economic development which is based on social needs and businesses’ strengths in producing and processing milk to meet the needs of consumers, farmers, local communities, the governments, and our business.”
He said, breeding, backward integration, food safety and farmer-centric programmes are the building blocks to sustainable dairy production in Nigeria.
He added that building blocks to sustainable productions include, soil quality, climate, true backward integration, herd management, animal welfare, among others.
