By Dele Ogbodo
The Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Dr. Aliyu Abdullahi on Saturday affirmed that in keeping with the Renewed Hope Mantra of President Bola Tinubu,the Ministry in collaboration with members of the Commercial DaIry Ranchers Association of Nigeria (CODARAN) and stakeholders in the dairy sector have pledged and concluded arrangements to increase the country’s annual milk, meat, poultry production by 10% annually.
The Minister who made the disclosure at the World Milk Day (WMD) with the theme: Harnessing the Nutrition and Investment opportunities in the Dairy Value Chain’ at the headquarters of the Ministry in Abuja, said that one of government’s priority actions is that meat, dairy, eggs, fish and other protein from animal sources will receive special intervention to increase productivity target of annual growth rate of 10% year on year in that sector.
The Minister acknowledged that it is pertinent to note the difficulty in attaining food and nutrition security without animal-source foods which provide the irreplaceable nutrients from animal protein sources (milk, meat, poultry, and fish products) required for growth and development, especially for children in Nigeria.
He said: “With an estimated 2 million children in Nigeria suffering from severe acute malnutrition (SAM) partly due to limited consumption of animal-source food, the role of milk consumption comes handy and to the rescue if made available.
“Indeed, the recent National Food Consumption and Micronutrient Survey 2021 clearly indicated the level of deficiency affecting women and children in which milk products play critical ameliorating roles.
Abdullahi, however, pointed out that the government is determined to urgently reverse the above trend.
The Minister quoted the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), as saying that Nigeria spends $1.5 billion per annum to import dairy products, explaining that this is because of our production deficit which stood at nearly 60% as according to him, Nigerians consumed an average of 1.6 billion litres of milk and its products.
He said: “The passionate dream of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is for us to attain national production security to even lead to export of dairy products to African countries under the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA).
“Both themes focus on celebrating the vital role dairy plays in delivering quality nutrition to nourish our citizens especially women and children, improving the livelihoods of dairy farmers and other value chain actors, creating employment and increasing the economic growth of our country.”
According to him, the stakeholders meeting will focus on the transformation of the Nigeria dairy value chain towards attaining food and nutrition security and delivering on the Renewed Hope Agenda of Food Security, Economic growth and job creation, poverty alleviation, inclusivity and contributing to security of local producers.
“It is pertinent to note the difficulty in attaining food and nutrition security without animal-source foods which provide the irreplaceable nutrients from animal protein sources (milk, meat, poultry, and fish products) required for growth and development, especially for children in Nigeria.
“With an estimated 2 million children in Nigeria suffering from severe acute malnutrition (SAM) partly due to limited consumption of animal-source food; the role of milk consumption comes handy and to the rescue if made available. Indeed, the recent National Food Consumption and Micronutrient Survey 2021 clearly indicated the level of deficiency affecting women and children in which milk products play critical ameliorating roles.”
The Minister reiterated that it is in pursuance of this priority plan that speedy actions to transform the livestock sector especially the dairy value chain towards attaining food and nutrition security becomes not only imperative but an urgent national duty.
“The National President of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, (MACBAN) had called on the federal government to pay more attention to the dairy industry through budgetary allocation.
“The livestock sector has not and never received the needed attention from the government; the only support we have gotten is vaccination of cows.
“The aspect of livestock production, marketing, transportation, processing among others is left in the hands of the pastoralists; the entire value chain of cattle is not harnessed by the government.”
The Minister also quoted the Commercial Dairy Ranchers Association of Nigeria (CODARAN) as saying that: “The most crippling challenges in the dairy sector are found in the midstream sub-sector of the dairy value chain.
“Low investment in the sector which had affected milk collection, aggregation, storage and transportation.
“Lack of organised milk collection schemes, high cost of milk collection and cold chain facilities, poor transportation infrastructure, unstable or non-existent electricity supply, pervasive insecurity and low access to finance are some of the challenges that affect smooth operations in the midstream aspect of the dairy sector.
“Nigeria can only bridge its estimated annual $1.3 billion dairy import when the Federal Government provides the needed infrastructure to drive investment and help reduce cost of production.
“We are not globally competitive in dairy production. It costs about N300 to produce a litre of milk in Nigeria as against imported powdered milk which is about N150 per litre.”