President Bola Tinubu has received a 152-page report from the presidential committee on implementation of livestock reforms, detailing several actionable targeted indicators within 10years time-frame that would reform the livestock sector in Nigeria.
Briefing State House Corespondents after submitting the report to the President at State House, Abuja, the Co-Chairman of the Committee, Professor Attahiru Jega disclosed that the committee has proffered recommendations on the set up of the Federal Ministry of Livestock development including detailed guidelines on the establishment of the Ministry.
Jega further stated that the report outlined terms of opening up the value chain in the sector and ensuring that all sectors in the value chains enhance economic growth and development, as well as create jobs, and ensure Nigeria attains food sufficiency and nutrition security.
Speaking on open grazing of animals in Nigeria, Professor Jega, posited that in order to address the Farmers-herders crisis, there should be a combined approach of adopting Ranching and Open grazing, noting that Open grazing which has been an age-long, traditional practice would be gradually phased out.
“So as many of you may recall, Mr. President inaugurated this committee on the ninth of July, and the committee began work immediately after inauguration, and we have been able now to produce what we call a report which contains very wide ranging recommendations as to how our country can tap the potentials of the livestock sector, in terms of opening up the value chain in this sector and ensuring that by so doing, we develop all sectors in the value chains to enhance economic growth and development, create jobs, and also ensure that we are not only able to bring about food feed and nutrition security, but we are also able to significantly begin to export many of the products that are associated with this sector.
“We believe that there has been a neglect of this sector for a very long time, and we are very happy that Mr. president has recognized the need to redress this neglect and has invited us to contribute to finding ways and the means of unlocking the opportunities in this sector.
“Today, we presented an inception report to Mr. President, and it’s a document of about 152 pages, divided into five sectors. In this report, we were able to address 12 terms of reference that were given to us as a committee, and we were able to develop 22 clear objectives of what the reform effort in the livestock sector should entail. And we’ve been able to make very specific recommendations on each of these issue areas.
“In addition to that, we were also able to identify targeted indicators, about 300 about 3146 of them. And we believe that by pursuing these and actualizing them, there is no doubt that within a reasonable time frame, in fact we believe, with a focused attention and effort in implementation, maximum within a period of 10 years, we would be able to actually, remarkably, see improvements in virtually all aspects of the livestock sector, from the large animals to the small ruminants.
“The opportunities are there, in fact, quite often in Nigeria, when you speak about livestock development, people tend to think you are only talking about cows, but the livestock sector is much, much more than cows, and obviously there is in it for everybody,” Jega said
