Stakeholders’ meeting with women leaders of milk processors in Osogbo, Osun State, Nigeria

As part of the activities scheduled under DAIRYCHAIN, project team members from Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife visited Orelope Sadiat Fulani community in Osogbo, Osun State, Nigeria.

Upon arrival, the team paid a courtesy visit to the community leader (also referred to as Seriki) - Alhaji Babatunde Soleeu - who received them warmly. The team leader, Dr. A. F. Agboola, introduced the team members and explained the purpose of the visit to the Seriki.

The Seriki was happy for the visit and recalled that the community, through its representatives, had had a previous meeting with DAIRYLEARN project team from Obafemi Awolowo University sometime in January, 2011.

The visit aimed at conducting a stakeholders’ Focus Group Discussion meeting with leaders of Fulani women cheese producers in Orelope Sadiat community. In attendance were 17 female leaders of the women milk processors in addition to the 4 members of the DAIRYCHAIN research team from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.

As part of the goals of the meeting, the stakeholders informed the community about DAIRYCHAIN programme and also got an opportunity to document gender roles and activities relating to local milk processing and cheese production.

In addition, the community publicized and created awareness about their cheese production, and drew the attention of the government and NGO’s to the challenges and constraints associated with their activities and livelihood.

The meeting was more involving and there was a lot of interaction between the team and the women leaders. The women leaders had over 10 years of experience in milk processing.

It was noted that gender roles have been vividly split with respect to cattle management, milk extraction, processing and marketing. For instance, care and cattle management including grazing and milking is the exclusive task of the male members while all other tasks related to milk handling, processing, packaging and marketing of cheese is exclusively done by the women and their men allow them to keep money from the sales of cheese.

However, matters relating to sourcing of inputs such as herbs and spices for milk processing are done by both genders. The local products which are made on a daily basis from milk processing include local cheese called “Wara” and “Ori Amo”, which are hawked in the local markets.

Although the community members appreciated challenges as being part and parcel of their daily lives, they identified selling of cheese in towns as the major constraint. They opined that establishment of a Milk Collection Centre by both the government and NGO’s would be a timely intervention that would ensure excess milk is traded for cash.

The community also requested provision of boreholes in the communities to alleviate the problem of water supply as well as the provision of loans to expand their local businesses.

It was noted that gender roles and activities in local dairy and cheese production constitute a key part of the economic life of most pastoral communities. Indeed the documentation of such activities plays a pivotal role in the design of intervention measures that can contribute to sustainable development of the local dairy
sector.