By Joy Umukoro
FrieslandCampina, West African Milk Company (WAMCO) has said that it is aiming to vaccinate 10,000 cows to promote healthy milk production. This is even as it revealed that it is targeting 5 million liters of milk production yearly through its pasture development, artificial insemination and crossbreeding programme to boost diary production in Nigeria.
Corporate Communications Manager at WAMCO, Ngozi Manuakaji, said the vaccination programme would be carried out with support from Oyo State government.
She disclosed that the programme serves as part of efforts to support Federal Government backward integration and commemorate World Milk Day.
‘Through the Dairy Development initiative, local farmers are supported in the production of milk (yield per cow improvement), improving milk quality and hygiene, feeding, breeding and farm management. The locally sourced milk from these farmers is collected through its 29 Milk Collection Centres (MCC) in five South Western states of Oyo, Kwara, Ogun, Osun, then transported to the world-class FrieslandCampina WAMCO plant in Lagos where it is processed into nutritious products for Nigerian consumers. During a familiarisation tour of WAMCO farms at Iseyin,Oyo state yesterday, Manuakaji highlighted some of the interventions of the company for dairy farmers in the state.
One of the diary farmer, Moyosore Olakunle, testified that he started his milk production with five cows producing around 1.5 litres of milk per cow daily but with the intervention of WAMCO through its artificial insemination and cross-breeding programme, production has been ramped up to 170 litres of milk daily.
“With their support,i have also been able to acquire more cows and several acres of land for grazing and ranching”, he added.
Olakunle added that the collaboration with WAMCO has also helped to create a larger market and has increased their knowledge of best practices with regard to milk production while supporting local farmers.
“WAMCO introduced us to larger and steady market where we can sell our milk. We used to do a maximum of 1.5 litres, but now we do over 20 litres of milk on each cow and WAMCO ensures that we sell our products.”
Other areas where the collaboration has helped in the promoting Dairy production in the country are in the aspect of acquiring more lands for farmers and providing them with the required medical support needed to ensure the cows are in healthy condition.
Isaac Kamal,one of the farm experts at WAMCO highlighted poor quality feed as one of the major problems affecting the industry. He however reaffirmed the company’s support to addressing the issue. “We have been able to import barracuda seedlings form South Africa to plant Serbia grass to support local feed.”