Real People Concept moves to boost milk production in Nigeria

REAL People Concept, a Nigerian agricultural company renown for livestock production has launched what it called Cattle Hub, in Iwo, Osun State, Nigeria, with the sole aim of daily mass production of milk.

Recall that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had earlier in the year announced the restriction of foreign exchange for milk importation to six major dairy companies in Nigeria.

The companies include: Nestle, FrieslandCampina WAPCO Nigeria, Chi Limited, TG Arla Dairy Product limited, Promasidor Nigeria, Nestle Nigeria and Integrated Dairies Limited.

The announcement drew the ire of many Nigerians. While many interest groups condemned the move, others mistook the decision for an outright ban on milk importation.

Speaking with the Nigerian Tribune on the cattle hub, Chief Executive Officer, Real People Concept, Tunmise Olagbaju, informed that rather than condemning the ban on forex for milk importation, players in the Nigerian milk production industry should step up their game by involving in things that would boost local milk production.

He stated that:”the reason Real People Concept came up with the idea of cattle hub is the fact the breed of cattle we have in Nigeria can only produced two litres of milk per day, so when it comes to milk production, we are not self-reliance.

“Definitely we need to improve on our breeds, we have few breeds that we can use such as bokolo and white fulani . But bokolo is docile, with good treatment they are good. So, our cattle hub is looking into producing hybrid for the dairy industry and we are not only going to be producing for dairy industry, we are also going to be producing hybrid for beef indsutry.

“We have proven exotic semen that we are going to use for inseminating bokolo and so the offspring can give between 10 to 20 litres of milk per day so we already have a farm in Iwo which we have been developing since the COVID-19 lockdown.”

Olagbaju, however, listed the advantages of the project in Nigeria to include that: “Cattle would not be roaming the street which simply means it is a ranching method of rearing the cattle. We are housing them, we are providing feed for them, we are proving water and good medication for the,. And they are going to be on zero graing, they are not going to be grazing around, so they are having the best of care.”

He further informed that farmers tend to benefit from the project as they are going to increase the production of their milk which means their income would be increased, their social life would be improved upon  and they will live a happy and healthy life when they get more milk and more milk means more money to their pockets. So, they will not labour in vain, they will have value for what they are struggling on.”

He also said that investors also tend to make profit from investing in the project. “Cattle project is capital-intensive we do not have all the funds to start big. The investors that would invest in this project would surely get good reward for their investment. We are going to be having an annual profit sharing, so in summary, investors would get handsome reward for their investment.”

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