The CEO of Royal FrieslandCampina, Hein Schumacher has newly announced the company's €23 million invest in local milk production as part of its Dairy Development Programme (DDP) in Nigeria.
The country's Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo explained that this investment would encourage other companies to invest in the dairy sector and spoke about the need to create a plan to improve local production across Nigeria.
"The plan of extending the dairy development programme to other states is extremely important. I think that backward integration is crucial. My worry is the lack of incentives for backward integration," Osinbajo said.
“We are investing around €23 million in our evaporated milk and ready-to-drink milk factory in order to provide fresh milk for the Nigerian consumer. FrieslandCampina WAMCO has been successful with dairy development in recent years and milk yield is improving.”
Highlighting the key milestones of FrieslandCampina WAMCO’s DDP, managing director of the company, Ben Langat said: “four model farms with crossbreed cows have been established to improve local milk collection across its five milk collection centres."
He further explained: “Our Company is fully committed to working with local farmers to grow local milk production and ultimately ensure that Nigerians continue to benefit from the nutritious content of milk. Working with 3,500 dairy farmers in over 90 farming communities in Oyo State, we are already providing the required knowledge transfer and sustainable livelihoods for communities. We plan to transform additional 500 pastoralists to settled dairy farmers under the DDP model. Already over 100,000 people have been positively impacted around these communities.”
Hein Schumacher made the announcement in Abuja at the start of this month.