Kaduna farmers lament as govt stalls multi-billion dairy project

Back in November 2023, a few months after Uba Sani, the Kaduna State governor, took his oath of office, top government officials streamed into Arla Farms in Damau to witness the groundbreaking of a dairy-producing facility.

Barely a year later, the facility threw its gates open to certain key industry stakeholders, including local farmers, agricultural experts, veterinary students and top government officials, who saw dynamic methods of cow welfare, feeding mechanisms, and advanced milk production.

However, when DUBAWA visited the 400-hectare site in February 2025, the facility was a far cry from its blueprint. The only route to the dairy farm was a crooked, untarred road besieged by uncultivated pasture and mooing cows.

“Money has already finished. I am telling you.” Abdulkareem Yahaya, a Damau resident, tried to explain to DUBAWA why a large portion of the project’s site was underdeveloped. He told DUBAWA that due to financial shortcomings, some of the companies that were contracted to provide infrastructure, such as roads and culverts, have abandoned the project.

Mr Yahaya’s rather distressing reaction only portrayed the public assertion of an X user, Happy Ustaaz (@Ussyy), who said that despite the Kaduna State Government obtaining a N10.5 billion loan to fund the Damau project, only 20 farmhouses out of the promised 1,000 units have been completed.

DUBAWA set out to fact-check this, among other claims, on the status of the farm.

N10.5 billion Damau household dairy farm project

On 17 January 2020, the then-governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, inaugurated the Damau household milk project in Damau, Kubau Local Government Area of Kaduna State. One of the aims of the project is to mitigate the farmer-herder clashes, which left tens of thousands dead and hundreds of thousands displaced in the northern state. Worse still is the wanton devastation of crops and farmland by trespassing herds, costing local farmers millions of naira in losses and worsening food insecurity in the country.

The proposed 1,000-unit household dairy farm in Damau, a remote village, was the state government’s brainchild against the crisis, supported by the Danish dairy giant, Arla, and the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN).

At the dairy project’s inauguration, Mr El-Rufai stated that the initiative was adopted as a sustainable solution to the security challenges associated with nomadic livestock production. Meanwhile, Arla adopted the initiative to aid local livestock farmers and elevate profit-driven dairy development in Nigeria. The managing director of Arla Foods Nigeria, Peder Pederson, described the partnership as a business venture to further sustain the foreign company’s global sustainability goal.

The former managing director of Kaduna Market Development and Management Company (KMDMC), Tamar Nandul, once told Leadership newspaper what the farm settlement would look like.

She explained that the farm would be segmented into three districts of about 1,800 hectares each, each containing eight to nine clusters of about 200 hectares. Each district is expected to accommodate 320 to 360 farms. There would also be an extra 600 hectares of irrigated land for feed production during dry seasons.

About 40 farmers would be assigned a district, and a farmer and his household would own five hectares of farmland with a farmhouse, cattle shed, and calf pen. Half a hectare would be for housing and garden purposes, while the remaining four and a half would be for feed production. Each farmer would receive three crossbred cows solely for milk production and breeding.

Although the project site is situated in a remote area lacking basic infrastructure, the Kaduna State Government said it would construct 130 kilometres of ten-metre-wide roads, 37 culverts, and two bridges. It also promised to build about 400 cattle sheds and calf pens, two skills acquisition centres, two primary health centres, two school blocks, two veterinary clinics, two market blocks/stalls, six toilet blocks and four security posts.

Moreover, in the first phase of the project, the local farmers would receive lessons on modern dairy. That is why Arla constructed a demonstration farm on 400 hectares of land in the farm settlement. The facility would have several temperature-controlled housing units for the cattle, residential accommodation for farm workers, feed mills, feed storage facilities, irrigation systems, and a milking parlour. Arla initially invested about $14 million in the farm and planned to invest another $25 million further to provide a processing plant and establish milk collection centres.

Farmers in the dark as the govt stalls dairy project

On a typical day in February 2025, the whole village was covered in a blanket of grey gloom. It had not had electricity in the last 20 years, and the glint of light that escaped from a few houses was sourced from solar energy. Some old men idly cycled their bicycles off to their respective destinations. Children dutifully carried buckets of water to their homes from the large well they had fetched from.

A resident, Danladi Bello (real name withheld on request due to fear of victimisation) told DUBAWA that the El-Rufai administration wanted Damau natives to be the first beneficiaries of the project because the project site is in their village.

Mr Nandul had told Leadership that the 1,000 farmers who would be beneficiaries of the project would be picked from different towns in Kaduna State, including Anchau, Ikara, Makarfi, Hunkuyi, Soba, Zaria, Sabon Gari, Lere, Kauru, and Damau.

The people in Damau are mostly Fulanis, who are predominantly cattle rearers. With the project stalling, they resorted to open grazing because their immediate environment is inadequate to feed the cows. Some household members are tasked with moving the cattle from place to place in search of feed. Sometimes, they move the cows from their initial location to another due to cattle rustling, a social-cultural blight that has plagued cattle rearers in the north for years.

Mr Danladi informed DUBAWA that when the project management team arrived at Damau, they only asked for the people’s biodata and inquired if they were interested in dairy farming. That was during their first encounter with the natives. When the management returned, they brought a list containing 400 names. These names belong to people who had been shortlisted to participate in the programme. They were later divided into ten groups, each having 40 members. Mr Danladi said there was no leadership initially.

Every group automatically became a cooperative society, which needed a leader. The Kaduna State Cooperative Society was present to witness the voting process. Anyone interested in the post would submit his or her name, while other members of the group who doubled as the floor members would make their respective choices. However, when an issue affects all the groups, each group will select a member to join another leadership group called the “Apex body.” This leadership group interacts with the project management team about the grievances of the cooperative societies and communicates the resolutions back to their cooperative society members.

Although not all cooperative members are cattle rearers, as some are crop farmers, all were trained in modern dairy. Yet Mr Danladi stated that none of them has been empowered to use the skills they have learned at the periodic workshops. He explained that Arla, the Danish company responsible for training the villagers, taught them how to extract milk from cows, properly process it, and market it. However, the beneficiaries have yet to receive the foreign cows they would use for their learning experience in producing milk. Mr Danladi pointed out that the local cows in the village produce less than five per cent of the daily milk output of the Danish breed.

“The cows are not yet here. Those ones are modern ones. Our local ones, they produce only a litre per day. One litre. The ones we are trained to take over when we work with them, they produce more than 20, 25 and above litres of milk daily,” Mr Danladi divulged to DUBAWA.

He opined that the transition between Mr El-Rufai’s administration and that of the current governor, Mr Sani, impeded the project’s progress. He said the current government has tried to proceed with the project despite the rift with the previous administration.

He stated that the current Kaduna government appointed Ibrahim Lazuru as the new Managing Director the Kaduna Markets Development and Managing Company (KMDMC) but beneficiaries have not had a cordial relationship with the new managing director. He said that when the new official met them, he promised to complete the project and provide the promised cows, shelter and farmlands. Mr Danladi told DUBAWA he does not know why those promises are delayed.

He wants explanations for why the government failed to fulfil its promises, but he is more concerned that if he or any other farmer openly resents the government’s sluggish attitude, it would fray their relationship and cause the farmers to lose the project’s incentives altogether.

So, he and the others do not have any other option but to be patient. He told DUBAWA that the villagers recognise their undesirable inadequacies, which have only caused them to be tied to the government’s apron strings, making their situation hapless. It appears the government may have laid out its plan for the initiative, and at the same time, is reluctant to execute it, for no reason whatsoever.

“We are now like beggars. A beggar has no choice. We cannot do it (modern dairy) ourselves. We cannot sponsor it ourselves. The government has its own way of doing things,” Mr Danladi expressed sullenly.

He said the lifesaver that has alleviated their mystery a little is the subsistence farming that every household in the village engages in. Naturally, every individual in the village is born into the family practice of owning a farm where they plant staple crops to feed on. But as simplistic as it is, it is not lucrative enough to feed an average large family three times in a day, or finance personal projects. It is merely an aid for survival. But Mr Danladi thought that if the government handed them the resources it had promised them before, they would be able to cater for their respective immediate needs. The initiative would only enhance the villagers’ purchasing power due to the profits they would garner after producing the milk.

Another programme beneficiary, Sabiu Damau, told DUBAWA that the programme has engaged them for four years. Like most participants, he is an agro-farmer and was taught how to grow grass to feed cows.

“They taught us how to feed cows. How to manage their food. How to plant their food. How to feed them. How to take care of them,” Mr Sabiu said.

Sabiu, the secretary of his cooperative group, informed DUBAWA that the programme’s participants have already learnt the techniques involved in modern dairy farming, including extracting milk from cows and preserving it. He said the project’s team promised them houses, livestock, school buildings for their children, and commercial markets to sustain local businesses.

Yet Mr Sabiu and 40 others from his cooperative society have not received the promised house units. The cooperative society secretary told DUBAWA that although the government has commenced building the 200 housing units, they have been left uncompleted. None of the farmers can live in the incomplete structures, so they continue to live in their blackout-ridden community.

“We have seen houses but the houses are incomplete. They have already started building them. They built at least 200. But even though they are 200, they are not complete,” Mr Sabiu told DUBAWA.

When DUBAWA visited the settlement area, there were about 30 completed buildings. The pens were only five and abandoned. No school, veterinary clinic, market stall, security post, or public toilet has been built. The villagers also said they anticipate the day the government will hand them the keys to their promised shops. Many of them still use makeshift stands in the village to sell their domestic wares.

Since 2022, the government has continued to assure the villagers that they will also receive hectares of land, power supply, school blocks, primary health centres, market blocks, etc. While the beneficiaries earnestly looked forward to receiving these, the programme’s team management only gave them paltry amounts during workshops.

“For three years, they told us that they were on the way to give us that. But up till now, nothing has come to us. Next, if we go to the workshop, they give us fruit. Then at times, I just think, one time they gave us N10,000, during our workshop in Kaduna,” Mr Sabiu told DUBAWA.

Within that period, the project team has organised workshops for the villagers five times. Sometimes, they engage only with the representatives of each cooperative society. Mr Sabiu said that whenever the project’s partners from Denmark want to meet with the beneficiaries, they usually request them to come to Lagos and dialogue. The purpose of such meetings was to know if the villagers received the resources the programme afforded them. Yet, not much of that would be discussed. When the representatives return to the village, they would only inform the rest of the cooperative members that the project’s management team has assured them that the programme will continue.

But the project stopped at a point. This happened when there was a change of government in 2023. That was the year Mr El-Rufai ended his tenure as governor of the state and handed power to his successor, Mr Sani. Both men were allies but fell out a few months after Mr Sani assumed office.

Mr Sabiu said when the programme stopped, they were told not to fret, as the sudden development was only temporary and would not affect them. They were told that the sudden halt was due to state matters but were not given details.

“It (programme) stopped. They say we should cool our minds; that we should not bother ourselves. The programme would still continue but there are some issues that they need to sort out with the state,” Mr Sabiu narrated.

However, the three-year-old project has not moved past its first stage. DUBAWA learnt that the project management team has engaged only the natives of Damau. All the people who were invited to join the programme so far have ties to Damau, with none from any of the other nine districts. Out of the proposed 1,000 beneficiaries, which the government promised to train, only 400 have been admitted into the programme.

Arla reacts, project yet to kick off due to government intervention

DUBAWA contacted Arla via one of its corporate project managers, Funmi Oduntan. Ms Oduntan told DUBAWA that Arla’s relationship with the local farmers in the Damau project is symbiotic. However, the Kaduna State government has to establish the farmers on the farm settlement before Arla engages them in the scope of modern dairy farming.

DUBAWA learnt that once the farmers are settled, they will be allowed access to the demonstration farm, where they will learn how to use the cow yields and adopt viable practices to sustain themselves via dairy farming. While the farmers will become knowledgeable about modern dairy farming, experience maximum increase in milk production, and accrue profits, Arla would be the offtaker of the milk produced by the farmers. This means the beneficiaries would agree to sell the milk realised from the project only to Arla, at an agreed price.

Despite the government stalling the project, Ms Oduntan told DUBAWA that Arla currently engages the farmers in a series of training sessions. By partnering with some local associations, including the Milk Valued Chain Association, Arla uses extension workers to teach the farmers the scope of modern dairy.

Although the farmers scarcely have access to the demonstration farm where Arla retrieves raw milk from Holstein cows before processing it into edible products, they are taken to the facility on open days. On such rare occasions, the farmers learn about the machinery the Danish company uses to process the raw milk and the techniques applied in processing the milk.

Meanwhile, since the farmers have not received the foreign cows that the state government promised them at the beginning of the project, they can only use the local breed of cattle they own to practice what they have learnt.

“So it is not a book learning that they learn the theory and then we have to set them up to practicalise it. As they are learning, they are implementing it even with their own cows, with the cows they already have,” the Arla official informed DUBAWA.

Ms Oduntan also stated that the houses where the farmers would reside have to be built, and pastures planted before the farmers would be told to move there.

“Because the Kaduna State government is going to settle them (farmers) and their households, houses need to be constructed, and pastures need to be prepared. It is in progress; it is not completed yet,” she told DUBAWA.

Kaduna govt stalls response to project’s delay

DUBAWA contacted the Kaduna State Government spokesperson, Ibrahim Musa, about the status of the dairy project. Mr Musa initially told DUBAWA that he was recently appointed and knew nothing about the project, but promised to contact the right quarters for information about it. However, over a week later, he has yet to get back as of the time of of this report.

DUBAWA also contacted the former special adviser on media and communications to Mr El-Rufai, Muyiwa Adekeye, but he did not respond to any of the questions we asked.

DUBAWA also asked the Kaduna State Ministry of Finance for the financial records and funds expended on the Dairy project, so far. However, we’ve received no response from the ministry after two months.

Limited knowledge

When DUBAWA visited Lere, a local government in the Southern part of Kaduna State and one of the local governments expected to benefit from the project, we approached Adamu Maigari, a livestock owner. He told us that he started rearing cattle in 2019 and sells them after they mature. For Mr Maigari and other cattle rearers in Lere, open grazing is still the most viable means of feeding their herd.

“For (the cows) whose milk we use, we take them to the bush in the morning, and in the evening, we bring them back,” he told DUBAWA.

Mr Adamu further stated that the local government authorities permit them to resort to open grazing to feed their cattle. Moreover, crop farmers welcome them onto their farms, especially after harvesting, and allow the cattle to eat the grasses on the farmland, maize, and millet stems. However, despite the cordial relationship between the cattle farmers and their crop counterparts, Mr Adamu told DUBAWA that clashes sometimes arise.

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When DUBAWA inquired from the Lere cattle rearer if he has ever heard of the Damau household milk farming, he replied in the negative. He told DUBAWA that he and other cattle rearers like him did not know about the programme.

“I have told you, I don’t even know this Damau household milk farming. There are many (cattle rearers) who don’t know,” he said.

The situation is similar in Sabon Gari local government of Kaduna State where many livestock farmers, who are meant to be beneficiaries, know nothing about the project.