Located in Kaduna State, the 200-hectare farm, scheduled to open in 2022, will have housing for 400 dairy cows, modern milking parlors and technology, grass lands and living facilities for 25 employees.
In addition to providing training and support, the farm will also showcase modern commercial farming in Nigeria. Over time, the farm is expected to produce more than 10 tonnes of milk per day, which will be processed by Arla’s dairy plant in Kaduna State, to supply locally-produced dairy products to Nigerian consumers.
Nigeria is among the fastest growing nations in the world. Its population is set to reach close to 400m by 2050. The Nigerian dairy sector is currently only able to supply less than 10% of the country’s demand for dairy products, a gap expected to grow in line with population growth.
“There is a great need for nutritious food and dairy products to satisfy the growing de-mand from Nigeria’s fast-growing population. This requires a complementary approach where imported food is crucial to ensure food security while also supporting the government’s long-term agricultural transformation plan to build a sustainable dairy sector in Nigeria. Our new dairy farm is our next step in our commitment to Nigeria,” said executive vice president and head of Arla Foods International Simon Stevens.
Since 2017, Arla has been the lead business partner in a partnership to develop a sustainable dairy value chain in Nigeria together with The Danish Agricultural and Food Council, Danish Agricultural Knowledge Center Seges, Care Denmark, the Nigerian pastoralist organization CORET, and the dairy farm cooperative MILCOPAL. The Milky Way Partnership program is supported by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In 2019 Arla scaled-up its commitment to develop a sustainable dairy sector in Nigeria with a new public-private partnership with Kaduna State government. It offers 1,000 nomadic dairy farmers permanent farmlands. Arla is the commercial partner that will purchase, collect, process and bring the local milk to market.
Working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through ALDDN (Advanced Local Dairy Development Nigeria) with SAHEL Consulting, Arla is also helping support more than 600 small-scale households to create better livelihoods by developing a socially, environmentally and economically sustainable dairy market in West Africa.
Arla Foods chairman, Jan Toft Nørgaard, said, “I am very proud of our collaborations to support the sustainable development of the Nigerian dairy sector and excited about what our new state-of-the-art farm will achieve. To collaborate with farmers in many parts of world, sharing knowledge and supporting local dairy industries is a key part of our cooperative mindset and our farm in Nigeria is the next important step. When it is built, we can support local dairy farmers to create better livelihoods and it is a key enabler to growing dairy and food production on a local scale.”
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