The Napier Grass Story - Business Innovation Facility (BIF Nigeria)

The number of people living in poverty (on less than $1.90 per day (2011 PPP)) in Nigeria has risen significantly from an estimated 44.5 million in 1985, to approximately 82.5 million in 2009. Given this context, BIF Nigeria chose to intervene in agricultural markets, dairy, maize, cassava and aquaculture – with information & advisory services as a cross-cutting enabling market – in the hope that stimulating change in one market system might produce synergy and multiplier effects across other markets.
The dairy market was selected due to its potential to reach the poorest women in society, who are found in northern Nigeria. Nigeria is the largest producer of milk in
West Africa, producing nearly 560,000-570,000 tonnes per year or 13% of production in the region. Currently, Nigeria’s output of milk per cow per day is about 1 litre, compared to other African countries like Kenya and Uganda with between 30 to 40 litres of milk per cow per day. Compared to Africa and Asia’s average of 0.9 million tonnes and 6.6 million tonnes, respectively, Nigeria’s 0.6 million tonnes of milk production is the lowest in the world.
Our vision of change for the dairy sector is to improve pastoralist returns from milk production through improved productivity and access to higher prices.