Dairy imports in Nigeria: Developments and policies

This paper looks into the causes contributing to the development of dairy imports in Nigeria. The first part of the paper provides a brief background on the overall patterns of agricultural and livestock production, dairy imports, domestic milk production as well as milk consumption. The second part discusses some of the constraints impeding the growth of domestic milk production. The third part explores the policy objectives which have emerged from a number of actions taken by the Nigerian government over the years as well as the import policy instrument employed to achieve these objectives. Part four discusses the likely effects of the policy instruments including the effect of increased domestic production on imports of different dairy products into Nigeria. Part five on the other hand assesses the likely effects of dairy imports policy on domestic milk production. Part six considers the important question of comparative advantage and provides a pleminary assessment of Nigeria's position with regard to domestic milk production