Pastoralism and livestock development in Nigeria

Nigeria’s large population estimated at about 160 million in 2014 provides a great platform for harnessing its agricultural potentials, especially the livestock sector, to meet growing demands in meat and dairy consumption. Meat, apart from meeting our protein needs, has become integral component of our menus.

During festivals and ceremonies, meat is a near obligation. Apart from meat, the growing urban populations have high demand for milk, cheese and other dairy products.

Against this background, it has become imperative for Nigeria to harness its livestock potentials to meet growing demands. Trade in livestock and allied products runs into billions of naira yearly, with millions of people benefiting from livestock production mostly done by pastoralists and rural farmers.

The livestock sector had over the years continued to provide sustainable livelihoods, nutrition and food security, and had served as a basis for social relations and empire building, it has suffered much neglect with crop-biased policies by successive governments. This has made Nigeria a net importer of livestock from West and Central African countries.

Despite the rising demand for meat and other livestock by-products, a combination of several factors had militated against the wholesome development of the sector since the early 1970s. Some of the factors include conflicts with crop producers, livestock diseases, poor veterinary service delivery and input supply, lack of good data and cattle rustling.

The livestock sector had not lacked interventions both at the continental, regional and national levels. How effective they had been is yet to be felt.

Now it seems interventions by international financial and development partners have moved from neglect to exclusion of Nigeria. The recent regional action plan worth $248 million US dollars to promote pastoralism and livestock production in the Sahel put by the World Bank, FAO and ECOWAS does not include Nigeria. The programme is called PRAPS in its French acronym and targets Six Sahel-Francophone countries; Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal and Mauritania.

Converse to the PRAPS project, the World Bank is developing an action plan to promote trade in livestock and meat in West and Central Africa that includes Nigeria. In effect Nigeria is targeted as a huge off-loading market ground for other countries livestock products whilst its producers are ignored and don’t benefit much from home policies.

The Nigeria National Agricultural Investment Plan has five strategic programmes with excellent policies, but not felt by rural farmers and pastoralists. However, it is not all so gloomy. The recent directive by President Muhammadu Buhari to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) to come up with comprehensive livestock plan and take steps to curb farmer-pastoralists conflicts has rekindled hope that we will see actions that will overcome the challenges of livestock production and plight of producers.

Source - Thisday