Schumacher made the announcement September 7 in Abuja.
The country’s vice-president, Yemi Osinbajo, said the investment would encourage others to invest in the sector, and spoke about the need to develop a plan to improve local production across the country.
“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.
Growing local dairies
Schumacher said, “The Vice President asked us to continue to invest in local dairy farming to increase local production of milk and we are fully aligned with his request. We will take forward the programmes we have been running and expand them.
“We are investing around €23m 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.”
Managing director, Ben Langat, said FrieslandCampina is fully committed to working with local farmers to grow local milk production.
Langat said, “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.”