NIGERIA – Nestlé, a multinational food and drink processing conglomerate, has commissioned a new milk collection centre in Nigeria as part of its 5-year dairy development project.
Nestlé Nigeria embarked on a deliberate sustainable action plan several years ago to mutually benefit its stakeholders and indigenous farmers located in Kaduna state.
The main objectives of this project are to bring local sourcing to over 80% all the while improving grain quality as well as the aggregation of small-scale dairy farmers to improve the productivity of the Nigerian local dairy industry.
Nestlé partnered with CBI Innovations Limited, a social enterprise that aggregates smallholder producers to give them traceability, for this initiative which is also supported by the International Fertiliser Development Centre (IFCD-2CALE).
The new milk centre was inaugurated by Malam Ibrahim Hassani, the Agriculture commissioner of Kaduna state.
It is expected to bring the milk collection and cooling capacity of the Nestlé dairy development programme to 3000 litres per day in the Luddaga Grazing Reserve from the 200 litres that used to be collected.
At the inauguration, Malam Hassani was represented by the permanent secretary Alhaj Mansisibi who thanked Nestlé and CBI for the initiative which will prompt more investments in the dairy sector thus empowering smallholder farmers as well as pastoralists in Kaduna state.
“Also, the timely intervention of the project will go a long way to support the state’s potential to utilise livestock production merits, improve the nomadic standard of living, foster the coexistence between the farmers and herders and help to mitigate the recurrent crisis,” he added.
During the opening ceremony, Victoria Uwadoka the Corporate Communications and public affairs manager of Nestlé Nigeria addressed the matter by saying, “We are proud of the progress we have made since the first engagement with the Kaduna State Ministry of Agriculture, which culminated in the start of operations in Ladugga Grazing Reserve in 2021.”
“Nestlé Nigeria’s dairy project is built on three pillars: Better Feed and Fodder, Quality Milk Products and Resilient Communities. We have made significant progress on these three pillars and the opening of this Milk Collection and Cooling Centre will help us consolidate this progress which has yielded an increase in milk volumes month on month.” She said.
The increase in milk collection capacity in Ludagga from 1,396 litres/day was made possible by the engagement and empowerment of 77 cooperatives and 31 aggregators in the Ludagga grazing reserve community, according to Uwadoka.
Victoria also asserted that Nestlé is committed to contribute to the development of the dairy sector in Nigeria through significantly investing in farmers’ capacity building, improving infrastructure and improving herd health.
To reach more pastoralists, Nestlé has seen to the installation of solar-powered milk banks, set within a 300km radius of the locations where pastoralists move to in search of fodder and water, the first of their kind in Nigeria.
Nestlé continues to leverage its expertise in the dairy industry to help build a sustainable dairy ecosystem and achieve its objective of creating shared value with Nigerian dairy value chain stakeholders.
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