FG to resuscitate 415 grazing reserves

To end the constant clashes between herdsmen and farmers, create massive jobs and harvest other economic benefits, the Federal Government plans to resuscitate the 415 grazing reserves in the country.

Akinwunmi Adesina, minister of agriculture and rural development who made this known at the ministry in Abuja recently, said only 141 of the available 415 grazing reserves around the country were mapped and gazetted. Even then, he expressed doubt that any of the mapped and gazetted reserves was being effectively managed to realise the objective for creating them.

Adesina therefore said it was to address these inadequacies with a view to optimising them that President Goodluck Jonathan directed the establishment of a technical committee with the active commitment and involvement of all stakeholders, including relevant ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) as well as states and local governments, with a mandate to develop maps and do an inventory of existing facilities for their effective utilisation.

According to him, the committee is to ascertain whether the facilities, which included those needed to facilitate livestock fattening such as water, fodder as well as veterinary and extension services existed and were adequate.

Adesina also pointed out that apart from addressing national security issues, resuscitating the grazing reserves had tremendous economic benefits, saying, “… the global Halal certified beef industry was worth $623 billion in 2011, and has leap-frog to $2.3 trillion in 2013. Argentina, Brazil, Spain and Australia are the major countries supplying Halal beef to markets located mostly in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia where about 5 million visitors go every year for religious and other purposes. The Halal beef market is more of business than faith. The Federal Government made a case for Nigeria to be admitted to the world Halal Beef Commission and enrolled as a supplier, during the meeting of agriculture ministers at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland earlier this year, given the large number of cattle in Nigeria.”

The minister therefore canvassed for “raising and fattening cattle and other livestock at serviced grazing locations rather than roaming them from place to place in search of grass, thereby they become lean and their meat is tough when slaughtered.”

He added: “Livestock grow much faster and fatter if raised in sedentary conditions, and it makes more economic sense to transport processed meat and meat products to local and foreign markets in hygienic conditions, and according to acceptable standards than transporting live cattle.” He noted that this would eliminate much of the clashes between herders and farmers that we see today and national security would improve.

An inter-ministerial technical committee tasked with working out modalities for mapping and resuscitating the 415 existing grazing reserves and stock routes spread across the country has thereby been inaugurated. This includes ministers of environment, works, interior, water resources, science and technology as well as national planning with commissioners of agriculture of all 19 states of North-Central, North-East and North-West geo-political zones as well as some adjoining states.

Other bodies represented on the technical committee are the Office of the National Security Adviser to the President, Office of the Surveyor General of the Federation, National Orientation Agency and the International Livestock Research Institute. It has two weeks from Friday, April 11, this year to submit its report to the inter-ministerial committee.