Agriculturist advocates establishment of large scale livestock farming

Taiwo Babatunde, a professor of Small Ruminant Breeding at Olabisi Onabanjo University has advocated for the establishment of large scale livestock rearing of cattle, sheep, goat and poultry in ecological zones best suited for the species.

The professor made the call in a paper titled ,”Animal Agriculture: A panacea to food insufficiency in Nigeria”, delivered at the maiden memorial lecture of the pioneer vice-chancellor of Samuel Adegboyega University, late Samson Fola Adedoyin located at Ugwa community, Esan West Local Government Area of Edo State.

While noting that Nigeria was richly blessed with human and material resources necessary for food and nutritional security advised that they must properly harness for better productivity.

He also postulated that every family in the country should be mandated to keep one or two micro livestock’s (snail, giant rat, guinea-pig, grass cutter and rabbit) for home consumption.

Babatunde opined that budgetary allocation to livestock should enjoy substantial increase and timely released when approved in relative to crop.

Babatunde further called for strengthen agricultural extension services to reach out to settle farmers with research findings and solutions to their problems.

He reported that Nigeria in 2010 alone spent N1.3 trillion importing wheat, sugar, rice and fish alone.