While many people groan and drown in the river of self-pity because of the economic recession, other woman have found a way of making ends meet beautifully.

Five years ago, in the bowels of Akele, a small, rural agrarian community in Oyo State, South West Nigeria, 35-year-old Ajara Lawal struck ‘gold.’

In this case, the gold was not the shiny, reddish yellow metal, but the white natural liquid produced from the teats of her cattle.

It was just a few minutes past 5am that early morning when our correspondent found Lawal, with others, beside their thatched mud huts, busy milking their cows.
Cow milk, which accounts for about 90 per cent of their daily income, is the new gold for uneducated women like Lawal.

Before then, life for the quiet, but hardworking mother of five literally consisted of trekking at least four hours on the bumpy road every day to hawk her wares in neighbouring communities and Ibadan, the capital city of Oyo State. She sold farm produce like cassava and local cheese – wara.

She noted that preparing cheese from local fermentation process using firewood usually took about three hours. But processing fresh milk took less than an hour.

Aside from wara, other products made from local fermentation process include nono (sour milk), sour yoghurt and local butter (maishanu).

Wara is also a popular milk delicacy among locals in many states in South-West Nigeria. However, these local milk derivatives have short shelf lives, as a result, they are only available within specific distances and locations.

The women usually trek long distances for hours to hawk these products in other communities and in the capital city, Ibadan.

“We were barely trying to survive. You should have seen the stress on my face when I used to sell wara everywhere. Now, I make more money and it is less stressful. I make between N2,500 to N3,000 daily. I have been doing this business for five years now and it has helped me and my family a lot,” she said, smiling. Her husband has three wives and over 50 cows.

Lawal is among the many women in Akele, and other neighbouring communities like Iseyin, Alaga, Fashola and Maya in Oyo State, whose source of livelihood comes from selling fresh cow milk to a dairy company with milk collection/processing centres in the local government area.

Like Lawal, women in these communities like Akele make about N100,000 or more monthly from the sales. “This business pays for my children’s school fees, three of them go to school in Ibadan,” she told Sunday Punch.

Mining ‘gold’ in cows

In these rural communities, where a large percentage of the residents are of Fulani origin, but settled in Yorubaland several decades ago, the wealth of families are determined by the number of cows they own.

Daily, while the women and men express milk from their cows, they chat happily, while the children watch, carefree about rural life. Such early mornings in Akele and other neighbouring communities are meeting points for different families kilometres apart to bond together and make their lives better.

“I am happy about this business, because we can make more money from this to help our families. We can send our children to schools in big cities like Ibadan. As long as God keeps us, we hope to continue to make money from milk,” said one dairy farmer, popularly known as Alhaja Agba, because she is the eldest wife of the late Galadima (Akele town chief).

Going by their standards, Agba is one of the richest women in the area; her late husband, with about four wives, left an inheritance of about 500 cows, which by right goes to her eldest son.

“Although we did not go to school, some of my mates that are well educated and live in big cities like Ibadan and work in big companies do not make up to the amount I make from selling cow milk,” another woman, Mrs. Rabi Aliu said.

She put her daily sales between N3,500 and N4,000.

“Before I started selling this milk, I was hawking and travelling long distances to sell my wara, like many other women here. But this business has helped reduce that stress. I did not go to school, so I would like my children to get an education and become important people in society. I don’t want them to be stuck in the village like me,” Aliu said.

A son to one of the women, 11-year-old primary four pupil, Saliu, said he was happy his mother had found something better to do.

“Sometimes my mum makes up to N5,000 a day selling about 40 litres or more. My dad owns over 100 cows. I am happy my mum is able to send me to school from the money they make from selling milk. Sometimes, they give me N500, N200, or N100 to school as pocket money. When I am older, I will contribute money to my mum’s milk business. I will buy a car for my parents too.”

One of the experts involved in the training of local dairy farmers on good dairy practices and hygiene, Dr. Samson Akinade, explained the source of livelihood for the women.

He said, “In Fulani settings, the men own the cows while the women own the milk. It is like a joint ownership. In most cases they have herdsmen who take the cows about and they help the women to express the milk, but in some other cases, the women do it by themselves or they do it together. They then take the milk and sell it to the Milk Collection Centre, to take care of the family.”

Making milk count

The days of selling only wara have long gone, said Lawal. Now, with some incentives such as aluminium containers, filter tools, and training by milk production experts from FrieslandCampina WAMCO Nigeria PLC, she said she and other women have a new lease of life as they now earn more income.

“The women are paid N105 per litre of milk. N90 is the actual milk price, but transportation cost is N15 per litre, which the milk man transporting it to our centre collects to fuel his motorbike,” explained the milk collection manager, Mr. Adekunle Olayiwola.

He further said the training given to local dairy farmers has helped to eliminate the crude and unhygienic methods of processing milk.

He said, “We train them more on how to observe the health of their cows and good dairy farm practices. We also teach them how to properly wash their hands and utensils before milking the cows to avoid microorganisms. After milking, the utensils they use are thoroughly washed, while the milk is filtered with a clean filter, and transferred as fast as possible to the nearest milk collection centres in aluminium cans, which we imported from India and distributed to them.

“The process time of milking the cows and getting to the collection centre depend on the number of cows the farmer has. It takes an average of 30 minutes. We encourage them to milk very early in the morning, between 5.30am and 7am. At that point, the milk gotten from healthy cows is very sterile and good milk.”