Will There Be Milk for Nigeria?

Milk for Nigeria?

Moo! There are plans for a dairy industry with milk for Nigeria! The world’s largest dairy cooperative is coming. They’ve signed an MOU, a Memorandum of Understanding, with the Nigerian government.

Arla Foods is a cooperative owned by 12,700 farmers from six European countries and the UK. They have a U.S. office and stores, I see from their website. The MOU says they will, “provide enabling organisational structure and trainings that will facilitate the development of the dairy industry in Nigeria.”

The representative from Arla Foods said, “the partnership . . . will promote and strengthen the emergence of a dairy cooperative system in Nigeria thereby giving farmers a strong voice and ensuring efficient distribution of knowledge.”

Will the Milk for Nigeria Go Sour?

That’s a tall order, given the size of the country and how spread out farmers are.

I wonder if they are too ambitious? Do they understand there are not simply different languages like they have in Europe, but different tribes, including nomads, whose farmers have differing customs?

Maybe Arla Foods does have an idea of the obstacles to providing milk for Nigeria.

The agreement says, “The Ministry is expected to support pasture improvements in grazing reserves within areas of operation, attend necessary meetings to review progress compared to targets and support Arla in removing any administrative and bureaucratic obstacles that prevent Arla from delivering on objectives.”

Early days, but still, I’m hopeful that there will be fresh milk for Nigeria.  I wonder how many years before the first product comes off the assembly line?

Anyone besides Lulu remember Samco?

My Sister Granny’s Poem

You’ve read about my group of friends who meet monthly to share some aspect of our lives. We write on a chosen topic and then read to the group. We’re the Sister Grannies.

We are not looking at the writing but the content. And we often have wonderful discussions, in addition to delicious food and plenty of wine!

This morning I found a pleasant surprise in my inbox. Barbara, one of the Sisters, had a poem published online. I love it. So I want you to have a chance to read it too. (The date is confusing; I don’t know why. But don’t let it stop you from reading.) That’s a stock photo, not Barbara!

Poem: Voices I Hear. August 31, 2015.

Fabulous Book Cover

Ainehi Edoro posted this stunning book cover! It took me a few seconds to realize the right side with the red bus is the front cover, the Welcome to Lagos straight vertical title is the spine, and the street scene is the back.

You can read more about the cover and the novel, the second by Chibundu Onuzo, in Ainehi’s blog Brittle Paper.

http://brittlepaper.com/2016/08/chibundu-onuzo-reveals-cover-lagos/comment-page-1/#comment-1140639

Race and Where We Live

The New York Times has a series “Race/Related” which I follow. John Eligon and Robert Gebeloff wrote Affluent and Black, and Still Trapped by Segregation which I read on Saturday.

They were examining segregation in housing. Does it persist and is it based on income levels?

“What we found was that across all income levels, segregation persists – even for households earning $100,000 or more. We decided to look more closely at black families of means, and what we found is that money doesn’t buy integration. Well-off black families live in disproportionately black neighborhoods that are much poorer than the areas where whites of the same income level live.”

Of course the next question is why.

The answers are complex.

In many suburbs, particularly near large urban centers, white families prefer to have mostly white families around them, sociologists have found. People of color are subtly made to know they’re not welcome.

Decades of more overt actions, like red-lining when banks refused to grant mortgages to blacks, and realtors’ refused to show homes in white neighborhoods to blacks, have reinforced segregation.

The authors say, “Those historic dynamics of race and housing have not disappeared, either. As recently as 2006, a city government report found that affluent, nonwhite Milwaukeeans were 2.7 times likelier to be denied home loans than white people with similar incomes.”

Then there is the feeling of belonging that all of us crave. It sometimes causes blacks to stay or move into neighborhoods where they are the majority.

Where are You Safe if You are Black?

But the dangers are real. Parents must teach their children, particularly black boys, to be extra careful. They cannot let the children out alone at night as white families in affluent suburbs can.

One family profiled in the article have two children, Taj and Ameera. “[They] go to a Catholic private school in Milwaukee where most of the students are white, but return to a Muslim household in a neighborhood where most people look like them. Both environments present difficulties.

“At school, the Sabir children have heard a teacher play down slavery, and classmates stereotype black neighborhoods as bad and drug infested.”

Most telling for me – and sad – was this: “They often find their worldviews out of sync with those around them. When Taj was visiting a white classmate in Wauwatosa (a white suburb) in May, the friend wanted to go outside to play with Nerf guns. But Taj recalled the police killing another black boy with a toy gun — 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland — and said that he had to be cautious about what he did outside.”

What a burden we place on black children. They must consider how to stay safe from the police!

Next time I’ll tell you about a companion piece written by a Nigerian.