Sedentarization and climate change resilience in Nigeria – SCREEN. The case of the Damau Household Milk Farm (DHMF)

project summary

The SCREEN project (Sedentarization and Climate change Resilience in Nigeria) looks at what happens when semi-nomadic pastoralist sedentarize and adopt new cattle breeds that maximize dairy production, as part of the Damau Household Milk Farm project (DHMF - financed by the Kaduna State and the Danish International Development Agency).

While past government-driven sedentariztion projects have not been very successful, DHMF differs from other projects in a number of ways: (1) by having a strong focus on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG); (2) by being business driven and connected to a modern dairy plant and a commercial value chain; (3) by providing capacity building; (4) by being managed locally by an NGO, instead of a governmental agency, and (5) by relying on voluntary participation with candidates selected among applicants. Our SCREEN project will document whether these characteristics can secure success for DHMF where past experiences have failed.

The DHMF scheme challenges important cultural norms as participants must adapt from semi-nomadism to sedentarism, from local breeds to imported breeds, from grazing to zero grazing, from a geographical dispersion of households to villagization blending participants of different ethnic origin, from household to cooperative management, and from maximizing heads of cattle to maximizing milk production. Moreover, in the pastoral communities, there are traditionally different gender roles attached to dairy production. While the livestock traditionally has been owned and managed by the men, the milking, processing and marketing of milk have been women’s activities. These roles can potentially be changed as the production becomes commercialized and there is a risk that women will lose the benefit that they traditionally derive from milk production and selling of dairy products. Thus, DHMF may provide significant increase in dairy production, livelihood income, security from cattle rustling, provision of health and education, and a reduction in farmer-herder conflicts, but DHMF may also imply radical changes in livelihoods, social structure, and gender roles and responsibilities. Furthermore, the extent to which DHMF can increase (or decrease) climate resilience remains an open question. Our SCREEN project will study all these issues.