Miyetti Allah Says Members Can Meet Country’s Milk Requirements

–  The Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria has spoken about Nigerias’ milk requirements

– The association said the country has more than enough cows and pastoralists to meet its citizens’ milk requirements

– It stated that the country currently has over 70 million cows

The Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), on Tuesday, September 17, said Nigeria had more than enough cows and pastoralists to meet its citizens’ milk requirements.

Alhaji Othman Ngelzarma, General Secretary, MACBAN, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja that the major challenge in milk production in the country was inadequate milk processors and collation centres to uptake pastoralists’ production locally.

The general secretary specifically noted that the country currently had over 70 million cows, adding that three litres output of milk per cow daily was enough to meet the nation’s milk requirement, if collated effectively.

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He said: “If we can collate milk effectively, it will be needless for the Federal Government to spend money on importation of milk.

“The problem is that there is not enough local processors to uptake the pastoralists’ production.’’

Ngelzarma noted that due to the inadequate milk processors locally and collation centres across the country, pastoralists ended up conveying their milk in calabash for sale at low cost thereby leading to wastage.

He, however, urged the Federal Government to encourage more local processors of milk within the country and improve their capacity in order to boost milk production and reduce wastage.

According to MACBAN scribe, federal Government should encourage members of the association to boost productivity of cows milk in the sountry.

He said: “There has not been any effort to establish more collation centres where our members can be offloading their milk for sale, this has made them resort to local processing and selling locally at much lower prices.

“However, if we can have a lot of milk collation centres established around the country with processors that will be uptaking the milk being processed by our members, at least this will boost milk production.”

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Ngelzarma emphasised that such measures would also encourage the pastoralists to live sedentary lives rather than moving from one place to the other and encourage them to educate their children.

He said: “I call on the Federal Government to invite more local processors to come up with processing plants that can uptake the milk being produced by pastoralists in the country.

“If we can get more uptakers, there will be no need for the country to spend money on milk importation.’’