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Cattle in The News By Salisu Na’inna Dambatta
The Nigerian media recently gave bovines, popularly known as cattle, wide attention and free publicity in their news coverage, while columnists and specialized commentators, analysed the implication of, and generally condemned, the presence of cows where they should not be – on the runway of an international airport.
Weeks before the appearance and subsequent crushing of seven stray cows on the runway by an aircraft in Port Harcourt, the President of the World Bank, Mr. Paul Wolfowitz poignantly started a tour to the country by visiting a herd of cattle at Ruga village, near Abuja, where he inevitably sniffed the smell of their dung, and subtly reaffirmed their importance to the Nigerian economy. The visit endorsed the culture of cattle rearing and generated, albeit briefly, national media attention to the livestock sub-sector.
While
visiting the cattle, the President of the World Bank promised to assist
the cattle rearers he met at Ruga village with some vaccines and other
drugs for their animals. He actually fulfilled the promise with the recent
publicised delivery of veterinary drugs and vaccines worth
As a farmer, President Olusegun Obasanjo has for long appreciated the importance of livestock to the Nigerian economy and the contribution they make to the welfare of the people. In a drive to design a potent policy to boost the sub-sector in his era, the Commander-in-Chief, experts and stakeholders brainstormed on livestock at the State House, Abuja, on October 19, 2002. The President fittingly followed it up by creating and launching the Presidential Committee on Livestock and Diary Development. This is justified for a number of reasons.
For instance, a recent government study indicated that in the year 2001, Nigeria had an “estimated livestock population comprising of 15.6 million cattle, 28.6 million sheep, 45.26 million goats, 5.2 million pigs, 118.5 million poultry (and) 1 million horses, camels and donkeys.”
The figures in the preceding paragraph (which some experts believe constitute nearly 40% of the population of livestock in West Africa) clearly show that the population of domestic animals in Nigeria is by far more than that of human beings. This is normal and healthy for a country seeking to improve the daily animal protein intake of its citizens.
“The livestock sub-sector is dominated by traditional systems of production, processing and marketing,” the document stressed.
However, regardless of the limitations of the traditional systems of livestock production, processing and marketing, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Malam Adamu Bello quoted data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMA&RD) in his 2004 Ministerial Press Briefing indicating that the sub-sector recorded 5.0 growth rate in 2003 and 4.2 per cent for 2002, rates surpassed only by those recorded in the smaller fisheries sub-sector in the period under review.
“This sub-sector is crucial to the economy. It accounts for about 16 % of Agricultural GDP,” he said. To further accentuate the importance of the livestock sub-sector, it is worthwhile to remind readers that statistics regarding the composition of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Nigeria from both the government and independent sources say the Agricultural sector contributes about 45 per cent.
The government study quoted earlier further stated that the sub-sector “provides a source of employment and income for a large proportion of the rural population as well as an important source of protein in local diet. The livestock sub-sector generates employment through its many and diverse upstream and downstream business enterprises.”
The details and nature of such business enterprises include the contribution of hides and skins for export dating back to the 8th Century, providing raw materials for tanneries, supporting a huge local handcraft industry and the employment of millions of Nigerians as rearers, animal feed manufacturers, traders in live animals, transporters, butchers and meat processors, researchers and in other various fields related to the sub-sector.
In fact the power and importance of cattle to the economy was recently demonstrated in Bauchi where there was a beef scarcity and a drop in revenue accruing to a local government when cattle rearers boycotted the Durum cattle market in the ancient city for a month.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported that they were protesting the theft of their bicycles and a motorcycle in the market. The Chairman of the Bauchi Metropolitan Council, Alhaji Ali Garu, the Emir of Bauchi, Alhaji Sulaiman Adamu and the State Government had to intervene to end the boycott and restore normal cattle supply to the city.
Some readers may as well recall that one of the campaign issues the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo focused on at rallies in the Northern States during the build-up to the 1979 general elections was finding better methods of transporting livestock from the grassland of Nigeria to consumption centres across the country.
What Chief Awolowo advocated then is currently getting the attention of the government through the Presidential Initiative on Livestock and Diary Development.
The “diary” component of the livestock sub-sector is equally important. Milk is vital, cheese useful and yoghurt popular. A number of farms stocked with diary cattle have emerged and are flourishing across the country. Locally produced yoghurt from Maizube Farms, Niyya Farms and Nagari Farms, for example, are now replacing imported products.
Diary cattle are money-spinners. I recently over-heard Admiral Murtala Nyako, a large-scale farmer and President of the Apex Farmers’ group in Nigeria saying that a single high quality diary cow could produce milk worth one million Naira for the owner in a year.
Indeed, successive governments in the country, right from the colonial administration to date, have initiated policies and implemented initiatives for the advancement of the livestock sector. The establishment of the West African Veterinary Research Institute (now National Veterinary Research Institute) in 1924 was a good example. The establishment of the Grassland Research Centre in 1927 “to address the problem of feeding livestock during the critical long dry spell of the year” was another evidence of government intervention to make the sector more viable and productive.
It is laudable that the National Assembly is currently working on a Bill for an Act to establish a National Institute of Animal Sciences in the country. When the Institute is up and serving the livestock industry in Nigeria, animal rearers would appreciate it as a major dividend of democracy and a monument to patriotism.
Salisu Na’inna Dambatta is Assistant Director (Information) in the OSGF. |