The multi-national dairy co-op first entered a proper partnership with the Nigerian authorities in 2016 and says it has since constructed a number of milk assortment facilities within the area, carried out coaching for native farmers, and enhanced milk assortment and manufacturing capability with a neighborhood co-operative.
In Nigeria, greater than 90% of milk manufacturing comes from pastoralist farming and round 5% – from business farming. However this technique brings a comparatively low yield and is unable to satisfy present market demand, estimated to be round 1.45bn liters of milk every year. In the meantime, the common milk consumption per capita stands at 20-25 liters in Nigeria. Compared, most European counties eat between 150 and 200 liters of milk per capital per 12 months.
The memorandum subsequently goals to encourage nomadic herders to affix into ‘cooperative enterprise constructions’ and provide coaching on numerous features of dairy farming, together with sustainability and employment alternatives.
“Nigeria has a dairy deficit with a niche in dairy demand versus dairy produced, and Arla Meals seeks to bridge that deficit by offering reasonably priced high quality dairy diet to the Nigerian shopper,” Peder Pedersen, Arla MD for Nigeria, informed us. “As we proceed to function a enterprise in Nigeria, we’ll solely accomplish that in a sustainable manner – enhancing the dairy sector, assembly shopper demand, and creating employment alternatives.”
Pedersen says the co-op’s MOU ‘goals to proceed the great work which we’ve got began in driving the sustainable improvement of the Nigerian dairy sector’.
“Particularly, we intention to proceed to enhance the method of, and attractiveness of native dairy farming in Nigeria by offering coaching on group construction and different components of correct dairy farming to nomadic farmers. The co-operation additionally goals to proceed to create employment alternatives and create sustainable revenue for dairy farmers in Nigeria.”
Whereas pasture-based farming continues to dominate in Nigeria, Pedersen informed us that an growing variety of farmers are adopting strategies popularized in developed economies. “The previous manner of farming in Nigeria, by pastoralist farming, continues to be robust and majority of the native milk continues to be made by this fashion of farming,” he stated.
“Nonetheless, extra farms at the moment are developing domestically the place focus is on farming strategies which are extra typically recognized in additional developed nations. Right here, know-how is of excessive significance, particularly relating to cow cooling, use of sensors for animal welfare monitoring, and so forth.”
There are after all direct advantages for Arla, as Pedersen defined, although cooperation is essential: “We see quite a lot of alternatives for backward integration by sourcing native recent milk for our dairy manufacturing by our dairy farm, but additionally by partnerships and off-take agreements with native pastoralist farmers.”
He added: “Working within the Nigerian market stays difficult with robust macro-economic surroundings with rising inflation, shrinking shopper pockets and lowered consumption along with a wide range of different points. Nonetheless, we consider that dairy stays an necessary a part of the patron’s eating regimen, and subsequently we’ll proceed to make sure we will present the best product assortment for the Nigeria shopper.”
In addition to working with the Nigerian authorities, Arla Meals can also be concerned in a number of different dairy improvement tasks within the nation. Amongst these are coaching periods for native farmers with the intention to maximise the output and high quality of their milk pool underneath the Milky Approach partnership and the approaching opening of a state-of-the-art Arla-driven farm in Kaduna State.
