The Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), has disclosed that milk production in the country is faced with the major challenge of inadequate milk processors and collation centres to enable local production.
The General Secretary of MACBAN, Alhaji Othman Ngelzarma, speaking in Abuja, said that Nigeria has more than enough cows and pastoralists to meet its citizens’ milk requirement.
He stated 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.
“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 are not enough local processors to uptake the pastoralists’ production.’’
Ngelzarma disclosed 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.
MACBAN entreated the Federal Government to encourage members of the association by putting the necessary facilities in place to boost the productivity of local milk in the country.
“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,’’ he stressed.
SOURCE: AGRONIGERIA