November 26, 2013

Nigeria to boost milk output to 1.1 million tonnes by 2015

Nigeria will increase its dairy milk output from 469,000 tonnes to 1.1 million tonnes by 2015, according to the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Akinwumi Adesina.

He said his ministry will help bring about this by attaining an average milk yield per lactating cow from below 500 litres to 2,000 litres.

This was announced by the Minister at the opening session of a-day training workshop on hygienic milk collection techniques and data collection for dairy value chain desk officers of the 36 states of the Federation held at the Livestock Training Centre Kachia, Kaduna state.

According to the ministry's North- West Zonal Director, Leo Nyam, the objective of the training was to sensitise the Desk Officers on the activities of the value chain, Hygienic Milk Collection Techniques and data collection as well as their roles toward the achievement of Growth Enhancement Support Scheme (GES) of the Dairy Value Chain.

The ministry also informed that one of the goals of the Dairy value chain is to raise the household income of dairy producers by at least US$285 million (30% import substitution in 2014).

According to the release, "the Desk Officer of Dairy value chain, Frank Abudei, gave an overview of the Dairy value chain hinting that Nigeria has the largest cattle population in West Africa of with an estimated number of about 900,000 milking cows, a market demand of 1.3 million tonnes of milk valued at NGN450 billion (US$2.8 billion) and a growth rate of 4.4% predicted for 2011-16.

Frank Abudei also informed that the total milk supply in 2010 was 600,000 tonnes which is largely imported, and the country still has a huge gap between supply and demand of milk and milk products estimated at 700,000 tonnes in 2010. This inability to contribute significantly to domestic milk supply and also bridge the demand supply gap is due to low input, low output livestock production system, poor productivity of predominant cattle breeds, low investment, low value addition and poor market development.

It was also added that the Dairy Value Chain Transformation Agenda of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture seeks to redress these challenges, through structural shift which focuses on issues relating to productivity, value addition and market development along the livestock value chain.