Ekiti State and Promasidor agree on a roadmap to resuscitate the moribund Ikun Dairy Farm via a PPP. Today was a good day!

One month after agreeing the roadmap on Ikun Dairy Farm, the MD of Promasidor led a team of experts to conduct a due diligence exercise on the farm. Started with a kick off meeting yesterday.

Started with a visit to the Onikun of Ikun. Community relations is a very important box you must tick to ensure capital is optimized. Loved his short and precise address.

The MD of Promasidor, my good friend, Anders Einarsson, will get a proper traditional title when this is done. Early days, but we hope this deal will close soon, and put people in jobs.

Met a herder around the farm, his cows produce about 2 litres of milk per day, nowhere close to enough; also suffer from bouts of foot and mouth disease. These are the people ripe for an outgrower scheme. Sure you get the point.

The serious work starts now. Understand what’s needed to run the farm; what products to make and who to sell to; build a business case; agree the shareholding structure. That’s before deploying capital and starting production. End

Let me close the thread with this green picture. Might be coming to a poster near you soon. :)

Update on Ikun Dairy Farm and Promasidor’s investment. Site is now being cleared and farm houses refurbished (pictures coming soon) ahead of the big announcement. Shareholder agreement and a capital commitment. Super excited!

Land clearing and farm house renovation in progress. Fingers crossed, planting will start next month. We need to close multiple issues: financing/shareholding, land prep, recruitment and infrastructure upgrade.

Here again with an update on our Ikun Dairy Farm. While we wait to formalise the shareholders agreement for the NewCo, we’ve started planting the feed for our cows. Progress!

Cows should start arriving at Ikun Dairy Farm next week, main batch coming from Maiduguri. Not there yet, but slowly making progress.

Update on Ikun Dairy Farm: First batch of cows being herded into the paddock. Shareholders agreement will be signed next week. By March 2020, farm will be fully operational.

Forgot to add today’s tweets to my thread. https://twitter.com/AO1379/status/1206970307719958531

Here we go. Update on Ikun Dairy Farm. Our cows are now stable, vaccinated and ready for insemination. We’ve also cleared the land and planting has started, and will eventually replace the feed purchased for the cows.

Our JV entity has also repaired the farm houses; procured equipment for the farm, and started hiring staff from the community. Time to show we can create wage employment from agriculture. :)

Tempted to apply for this, but I’ll pass. Please share, the preferred candidate might be on your TL.

Spent a few hours at Ikun Dairy Farm to inspect the progress. We now have 30 indigenous workers on the farm, expecting 150 more cows in a few weeks, with 40 inseminated. Forgot to take pictures of the farm houses, but I’ll be back there soon.

First milk at Ikun Dairy Farm. By Q1 2021, we expect to produce milk in commercial quantity.

For those rightly asking if the farm will be mechanized. The answer is clearly, yes. But we need to energize the location first, which is why I’m pleased we now have 500kVA transformer installed.

Update on Ikun Dairy Farm: 174 cows (104 pregnant); 5 cows producing 18 litres of milk/day. Next steps: importation of 400+ Jersey cows abs outgrower scheme to collect 1,500 litres of milk/day.

An exciting update. Our first batch of Jersey cows being loaded to the isolation centre in the US, ahead of a flight to Nigeria next year. We expect at least 250 cows on the first flight.

Got 41 of c. 250 heifers in today, due to their weight (mostly pregnant) and available cargo space. Hope to get the other 200+ in very soon. Another tiny milestone hit.

Update: 250 cows arrived this morning, for onward delivery to Ikun Dairy Farm Limited; a JV between @ekitistategov and @PromasidorGroup. We now have 300 jersey cows, and almost 500 in total. We moo-ve!