Dairy making or farming was once seen as an exclusive preserve of men. But the story is gradually changing, with women getting more involved in producing the milk Nigerians consume daily.
Hawawu and Umu Abdullahi are both wives and mothers. Before FrieslandCampina WAMCO, a Dutch dairy maker in Nigeria, started a project known as the Dairy Development Programme (DDP) in Iseyinland, Oyo State, they had both been local cheese sellers without hygienic means of extending the shelf life of the cheese they both ate and sold for sustenance.
The stories of these women today have changed, with them supplying raw milk to WAMCO and making money from doing so.
“My profit has improved. Every day after the cows are milked, we go and deliver the milk to the collection centres and the company (FrieslandCampina WAMCO) pays us money very promptly,”
Hawawu said.
Her lifestyle and social life have equally improved, thanks to the DDP.
“Right now, I belong to a women forum where we learn and discuss things of great benefit to us as women,” she said.
“Before, things were very hard, but today, my life and that of my family are much easier. I have even started an additional business of selling uncooked rice,” Hawawu added.
For Umu Abdullahi, her family now make a steady, regular and reliable income.
“I now have time to do other things as my family make steady income from selling raw milk from our cows to the company,” she said.
“Also with more people coming to trade and live among us, this boosts our sales as we sell other things like foodstuff to the community and transporters,” she added.
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,” Majaro, who hails from Fasola, another community in Oyo State, told this writer.
These women now have a guaranteed market for their raw milk, which WAMCO uses as raw material.
Nigeria’s dairy sector is still largely evolving and unable to cope with the needs of the country’s population of 200 million. There are key players in the sector who sell milk and other dairy products to Nigerian consumers, but only one multinational company has demonstrated total commitment to developing the sector.
When FrieslandCampina WAMCO, Nigeria’s leading dairy company began its multi-billion naira DDP in 2010, not many people in the dairy sector knew it was in it for the long haul, because similar efforts by others had failed in the past.
In just a few years, the company’s commitment to growth and the development of Nigeria’s dairy sector has yielded encouraging results. Today, over 900 rural women in Oyo State, where FrieslandCampina WAMCO operates its successful scheme, have been sharing huge testimonies of how the DDP has improved their lives, living conditions and livelihood, amid the 3,500 dairy farmers who are benefitting from the scheme.
Since 2010, FrieslandCampina WAMCO has been investing in the DDP and has established a large network of milk collection centres across the south west of Nigeria.
The Dairy Development Programme provides sustainable livelihoods in over 90 farming communities where dairy farms have been made more effective. Since signing and renewing its Memorandum of Understanding with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development as well as the Oyo State Government, FrieslandCampina WAMCO has also collaborated with the Dutch Government under the FDOV, IFDC-2SCALE and Sahel Capital.
It has setup one bulking centre, five milk collection centres, 10 milk collection points and dedicated 15 specialised milk trucks to facilitate the process of milk collection in the DDP area.
Other companies have contemplated this project, but they face drawbacks such as huge financial outlay, long-term investment turnaround period and related community development projects that every dairy investor must also engage in before the affected communities can embrace fully the business model.
Over the years, FrieslandCampina WAMCO, alongside its partners, has provided 50 solar-powered boreholes in the milk producing communities in Oyo State, completed over 200 hectares of pasture development, and trained over 3,500 dairy farmers/milk suppliers on various topics in modern dairy production.
Ben Langat, managing director, FrieslandCampina WAMCO, said, “Our Dairy Development Programme has supported four master farms where dairy projects are currently running and there are 16 more under development.
“The DDP has impacted over 100,000 people from raw milk supplies to the creation of job opportunities to host communities, for example – transporters, feed, veternery supplies etc. This has engendered business development around the milk collection centres.”
FrieslandCampina WAMCO grouped the women into two co-operatives of 30 members each, namely Fashola Women Dairy Cooperative and Alaga Women Dairy Cooperative.
The women were trained on entrepreneurial and leadership skills to increase their income and sources of livelihood. They were also trained on vocations such as bead making, fabric designs and dress making.
The company provided shops for members of these cooperatives to sell provisions and other items to members of their communities. These forward-looking women are also empowered to sell in these shops, milk products made from the raw milk they initially supplied to the milk collection centres.
Families living in these DDP-enhanced communities use the potable water provided by FrieslandCampina WAMCO for milking, domestic and personal hygiene like cooking, cleaning and drinking.
Some of these women have made significant socio-economic progress; a good number have built houses and moved out of the thatched huts they used to live in.
This DDP is the nucleus of the company’s CSR programmes. It transfers over 140 years of FrieslandCampina’s global expertise to Nigeria, bringing gold-standard Dutch farming practices to the nation.
“The DDP is the second chapter of our history and a new era for the dairy industry in Nigeria,” Langat said.
“Studies show that 95 percent of farmers in Nigeria are nomadic and they face challenges such as lack of knowledge, poor infrastructure and low financing. The DDP stimulates local sourcing of raw milk and supports the Federal Government’s initiative of improving dairy farming.”
The DDP enables dairy farmers run their businesses optimally as well as raise the quality and quantity of their dairy production. This is done through knowledge-sharing, training courses and exchange programmes with a number of partners.
FrieslandCampina WAMCO’s DDP spans across 90 communities in Southwest Nigeria, identifies dairy value chain actors, organises and trains dairy farmers and extension workers, collects and processes raw milk, funds crossbreeding and hybrid pasture cultivation, and transfers global know-how to farmers.
Other successes of the DDP include an increasing appreciation of women farmers as game changers in the community. In the DDP areas of Oyo State, the overall quality of raw milk supplies have improved with bacterial contamination reduced considerably. Farmers’ competencies have increased as a result of sustained trainings.
ODINAKA ANUDU
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