Milk Enterprise Development Initiative for Youth Employment (MEDIYE)

As the largest producer of livestock in West Africa, Nigeria nevertheless has a very low annual milk production. The country has been heavily dependent on milk imports for over 60 years, despite all the potential for large-scale milk production. To meet this challenge, the intervention planned by NANTS is conceived as a combination of technical enterprise and economic development model aimed at modernizing milk and fodder production practices, building the capacities of players with a view to raising productivity levels and operators' incomes, thus positioning the sector as an attractive career path for Nigeria's teeming youth.

The project aims to establish an integrated small-scale skills acquisition center designed as a "hands-on school arena" with demonstration and incubation facilities in the dairy and forage production sector. The facility will engage in a series of hands-on training, capacity-building and handholding activities, exposing young people in particular to contemporary best practices in milk production, collection and aggregation, including forage production and feed management, etc. In addition to fodder and milk production practices, this project will train and guide beneficiaries in rudimentary business management techniques such as record keeping, farm accounting, labor and input costs, supply orientation, resource allocation, profit calculation and savings, etc. In addition, to strengthen the capacity of beneficiaries to progress and excel in the milk and fodder production sector, they will be introduced to the techniques of cooperative group formation and management, feasibility and business development/planning and proposal writing. To improve product quality and competitiveness, these beneficiaries will be further trained in best practices in hygiene and environmental sanitation. Training manuals will be developed and distributed to beneficiaries. The best trainees graduating from the project will receive start-up kits.