Across Nigeria’s dairy sector, women are gaining greater visibility in a value chain that is increasingly connecting traditional milk production to formal markets, organised cooperatives and direct economic opportunities.

Through its Livestock Development Project, Nestlé Nigeria is supporting this shift by strengthening skills, production systems, market access and payments to women milk producers.

Today, remarkably at Paikon Kore in Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory, the story of milk is changing one litre at a time. What once moved largely within pastoral households is increasingly entering an organised commercial chain where milk is collected, cooled, aggregated and supplied to formal buyers.

So,at the centre of that transition are producers, cooperatives, aggregators and, increasingly, women whose long association with milk is becoming more visible in the economics of the dairy business.

Notably, Nestlé Nigeria’s Livestock Development Project, NLDP, conceived in 2019 and inaugurated in 2021, has sought to strengthen local dairy production through better milk, better feed and resilient communities.

Impactfully, implemented with CBi Innovations and 2SCALE, and supported by the Federal Capital Territory Administration, the project has combined farmer training with herd health, water infrastructure, improved feeding, milk handling and market access.

Against that backdrop, the scale of that intervention is now reflected in the numbers. Nestlé’s 2025 Annual Report records 83 cooperatives involving about 3,200 milk producers and 55 aggregators supplying the project. During 2025, the programme aggregated 833,916.50 litres of fresh milk, while cumulative project aggregation exceeded 2.27 million litres.

More importantly, behind those litres is a more revealing measure of economic participation: money reaching women producers. Furthermore, Nestlé’s 2025 Annual Report records approximately ₦455 million paid to women milk producers in 2025, alongside about ₦49 million paid to youth aggregators.

No, doubt, that payment figure gives fresh meaning to the women’s empowerment dimension of the dairy programme. It shows women not simply as beneficiaries of a development intervention, but as participants receiving value from a commercial agricultural chain.

Historically, the connection between women and milk is not new. However, CBi Innovations, one of the project’s implementation partners, documents milk as a significant household resource among Fulani milk producers and notes that, although cattle may belong to men, milk has traditionally been associated with women, with income from milk sales supporting household needs.

Indeed, what is changing is the structure around that traditional economic activity.This is because, instead of milk remaining primarily within the household economy, the NLDP has sought to connect producers to a formal market.

Therefore, that process begins with knowledge. Moreso, CBi Innovations reports that a training programme initially planned for 50 participants was expanded to more than 300, with women accounting for more than half of the beneficiaries.

Subsequently, the training covered feed and feeding, herd health, milk handling and hygiene, as well as cooperative formation and dynamics. In practical terms, the significance of those skills becomes clearer when viewed against the demands of the market.

Accordingly,better feeding can improve productivity; herd health protects the animals that produce the milk; improved handling and hygiene help preserve quality; while cooperative organisation connects individual producers to aggregation and buyers.

Consequently, the cooperative has become an important bridge between household production and industrial demand. During the earlier phase of the NLDP, CBi Innovations reported 26 cooperatives, 1,410 pastoralists trained, 20,744 cattle vaccinated and 700,882 litres of milk collected between 2021 and 2023. The project also established 19 boreholes, planted 252 hectares of pasture and installed a 30kVA solar system at a milk collection centre.

Since then, the programme has expanded considerably. Nestlé’s 2025 figures show 83 cooperatives, about 3,200 producers and 55 aggregators participating in the supply chain.

Equally important, that expansion matters because production alone does not create a functioning dairy economy. Milk needs a market, and the market needs reliable volumes and acceptable quality.

The transformation can be traced to June 1, 2021, when the Paikon Kore milk collection centre recorded its first 200 litres. By February 2025, Nestlé reported average daily collection of 6,000 litres.

The News Agency of Nigeria, reporting from the launch of Nestlé’s Dairy Demonstration Farm, quoted Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Wassim Elhusseini as saying the project had aggregated more than one million litres of raw milk and benefited about 3,000 producers in 83 cooperatives. Nestlé’s own account likewise records the rise from 200 litres to an average of 6,000 litres daily.

Furthermore, Nestlé reported that more than 2,000 pastoralists had been trained, more than 36,000 cattle vaccinated, and 19 boreholes and 28 water troughs constructed. Milk rejection, according to the company, fell from 12 per cent in 2021 to five per cent in 2024.

Viewed from the perspective of women’s economic participation, the figures reveal why infrastructure is central to the story. Water, animal health, feed, hygiene and collection facilities may appear removed from financial empowerment, but each affects whether a producer can consistently generate milk of sufficient quality to enter the formal market.

Nestlé has also reported that household monthly income among participating milk producers increased from ₦70,000 in 2021 to ₦250,000 in 2024. Elhusseini attributed the reported increase to improved dairy practices and enabling infrastructure. The Federal Ministry of Livestock Development subsequently cited the same figures in describing the intervention.

However, that figure is properly understood as a Nestlé reported programme outcome rather than an independently audited impact assessment. It also does not establish that the increase applied specifically to women or that all participating producers experienced the same change. The stronger gender specific evidence comes from the documented participation of women in training and, most directly, the approximately ₦455 million that Nestlé reported paying to women milk producers in 2025.

At Paikon Kore, the intervention has also taken a physical form through the Nestlé Dairy Demonstration Farm. Launched in February 2025, the four hectare facility was designed as a practical model for improved dairy production, featuring cattle sheds, calf and maternity facilities, a sick bay, holding area, dip tank, hay barn and automated milking system, alongside solar power and biogas based waste management.

Nestlé says the demonstration model can potentially raise the productivity of local cattle from about one litre of milk per cow per day to more than 10 litres under improved breeding, nutrition, herd health and farm management. That is a potential demonstrated under the model, rather than a claim that every producer in the programme is already achieving that level.

Beyond the farm itself, the initiative is also becoming part of a wider push to build technical capacity in the dairy sector. In June 2025, Nestlé and the Federal Ministry of Livestock Development signed a Letter of Intent for a Dairy Technical Skills Development Programme focused on milk production, processing, hygiene and management. The initiative is intended to develop mid level technical and vocational skills required to strengthen Nigeria’s dairy value chain.

That effort comes against a national dairy challenge that extends well beyond Paikon Kore. The Federal Government has identified infrastructure deficits, limited access to finance and inadequate veterinary services among the constraints confronting the livestock sector. At the same time, Nestlé has set a target of reaching 30,000 litres of milk per day by November 2027.

For the women participating in this value chain, the significance lies in the connection between work and recognised economic value. In concrete terms, a woman trained in better milk handling is contributing to quality

With this, a producer organised through a cooperative has a clearer route to aggregation. In the same vein, a collection centre gives milk a market beyond the household. Likewise, an aggregator creates another commercial link. And when payment reaches the producer, the value of that work becomes measurable.

Crucially, the evidence does not support saying that every woman in the participating communities has been financially empowered, nor that all producers are women. It does show something more concrete: women are documented participants in the dairy programme, they represented more than half of the beneficiaries in one documented training intervention, and Nestlé reported paying approximately ₦455 million to women milk producers in 2025.

Particularly, that is where the story moves beyond rhetoric. At Paikon Kore, the journey from 200 litres collected in a day to thousands of litres is also a journey from informal production towards an organised market.

Truly,it is a story of cooperatives, training, healthier cattle, water, better handling, collection infrastructure and, increasingly, payments that put a value on women’s participation.

Therefore, Nestlé’s intervention does not by itself resolve the challenges confronting Nigeria’s dairy industry. Its sustainability will depend on producers, cooperatives, aggregators, government agencies and private sector partners continuing to strengthen the chain.

Even so, the direction is visible in the numbers. Today,more milk is being collected. More producers are organised. More infrastructure supports production. And a significant amount of money is reaching women producers directly.

For the women behind the milk, that may be the most important transformation of all. Notably,the milk that once carried value mainly within the household is increasingly entering a market where it can be measured, bought and paid for. Indeed, at Paikon Kore, the women behind the milk are becoming increasingly visible in the business of the milk.