Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu
Ogbeh says 11 states have provided 55,000 hectares to establish ranches to curb
farmers and pastoralists clashes in their states
.
Ogbeh made this known at a
news conference on Thursday in Abuja. Ogbeh said the states are Plateau,
Kaduna, Kano, Gombe, Katsina, Taraba, Niger, Adamawa, Jigawa, Sokoto and the
FCT. He said of all the enterprise in the livestock sector, only the poultry
industry had achieved an appreciable level of commercialisation.
Ogbeh said
other industries in the livestock sector were predominantly in the hands of
subsistence farmers with pastoralist system of production contributing over 90
per cent of cattle production in the country. He said the 2011 National
Agricultural Sample Survey indicated that Nigeria was endowed with an estimated
19.5 million cattle, 72.5 million goats, 41.3 million sheep, 7.1 million pigs
and 28,000 camels.
Accordingly, the minister said the country had 145 million
chickens, 11. 6 million ducks, 1.2 million turkeys and 974, 499 donkeys. Ogbeh
said this impressive statistics which had made Nigeria number one in livestock
in Africa had not met the national demand of animal protein or contributed to
the GDP over the years.
He decried the low milk production in Nigeria as a cow
produced one litre of milk a day while a cow in Saudi Arabia or Brazil produced
30 to 40 litres. “Saudi Arabia produces 4.7 million litres of milk daily while
Nigeria imports about 1.3 billion dollar worth of milk annually to make up
deficit.
“The way forward in improving our livestock and dairy industry is to
intensify efforts on adding value to the industry along the respective
livestock value chains.
“In line with our goal of attaining self-sufficiency in
animal protein, this administration has set out to establish ranches to be
planted with high quality improved tropical grass and legume species.
“We shall
provide irrigation for all year commercial fodder production to enhance
settlement of pastoralist and ensure cattle, sheep and goat improvement through
an expanded breeding programme through artificial insemination.
“We shall group
dairy farmers in clusters, build their capacity and equip them with milk
collection facilities and facilitate single digit loan for them,’’ he said. The
minister said there was a new disease outbreak affecting maize production in
some parts of Edo and in the South West of the country.
He gave the name of the
disease as “army worm’’, adding that relevant research institutes were working
on it and the ministry was monitoring the level of threat it posed. Ogbeh urged
farmers not to panic, adding that the ministry would take further action if the
disease is not controlled within a short time.
Source
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