Nigeria’s Dairy Imports Stands at $1.5bn Says Nanono
Mohammad Nanono, the Minster of Agriculture and Rural Development, announced earlier this week that Nigeria imported over $1.5billion on dairy products.
Nanono made the announcement this week during the annual ‘National Dairy Policy Stakeholders Engagement’ which took place in Abuja. He highlighted at the consumption of bulked milk is less than 20& of the local potential, and that Nigerian’s milk production accounts for only 13% of the West African production.
He indicated “The per capita consumption of milk is eight litres per year representing very low consumption levels when compared with the global averages of 44 litres of milk”.
As a result, the neglect in the livestock industry has had a large negative effect on the nations import bill.
He continued “Around $5billion worth of food is imported yearly into the country, out of which milk and dairy products account for around $1.5billion. Hence the annual dairy consumption is met by 60% imports and 40 per cent local production.”
Mr Nanono assured the Ministry of Industry Trade and Investment is committed to providing sustainable access into affordable qualities of food to all Nigerians with the intention of boosting local food production with the intention of being self sufficient.
Minister of Industry Trade and Investment, Otunba Adebayo, announced that Nigeria’s annual production of milk stands at 672 million litres, against the annual demand which is reported to be around 1.6billion litres, which hugely suggests that the nations production can not effectively meet the level of demand.
He continued to say that Nigeria currently has cattle stock with over 20 million cows, however only around 2.3 million are utilised for large scale dairy production. This is substantially lower than intended amount which is insufficient to meet demand.
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Source: Vanguard Nigeria, April 2021
