Stakeholders urge Livestock Development Ministry to address food insecurity

Agribusiness stakeholders, including the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Commercial Dairy Ranchers Association of Nigeria, have demanded that the newly created Ministry of Livestock Development address food insecurity.

President Bola Tinubu approved the creation of the Livestock Development Ministry on July 9, 2024, as he inaugurated the Presidential Committee on Livestock Reforms at the State House, Abuja.

The Chairman of the Agro-allied group, LCCI, Kola Aderibigbe told The PUNCH that creating a Ministry of Livestock Development by President Bola Tinubu was a welcome idea, however, farmers wanted to see a plan of how the ministry would address the food insecurity in the country.

Aderibigbe said, “It is a welcome development. It will add to the dairy farm industry and create more opportunities. But we need to see what is in the pipeline for the ministry.”

He noted that farmers still suffered from insecurity and that their desire was for the ministry’s creation to provide a means to allow farmers to go back to their farms and begin to produce food.

However, the LCCI Agro-allied group chairman expressed concern about the heightened cost of dealing with the Livestock Development Ministry and the Ministry of Agriculture by integrated farmers.

“What about integrated farming? Some people integrate their crop farms with livestock. That means you will have to deal with two agencies, which will cause confusion and certifications will become costly,” he said.

Aderibigbe was worried about the specifics of the solution the Ministry of Livestock Development would bring to the farmer-herders clashes that have prevented many farmers from optimally using their farmlands.

The farmer noted his disappointment with how no headway was made with the ranching option for the open-grazing debate.

He hoped the new government initiative would not be politicised or lead to the conversion of private land property for grazing.

He stated that the country’s multi-billion dollar dairy farming industry could be properly harnessed with modern ranching practices.

Aderibigbe told The PUNCH that the LCCI agro-allied group would want to work with the presidential committee as private sector stakeholders.

The President of CODARAN, Alhaji Muhammadu Abubakar, who is also the CEO of L&Z Integrated Farms, said it would take more than a department in the Ministry of Agriculture to realise the potential of dairy farming alongside other outputs of livestock farming.

He stated that the vision of the Dairy Ranchers Association was to meet national demand for dairy products, thus cutting down on the country’s reliance on imports, which in 2023, amounted to $1.5bn annually, according to the National Biotechnology Development Agency.

He said, “Meeting the national demand (for dairy products) and stopping imports would take years before the excess would be imported. There is a real need for a ministry to drive this.”

Abubakar, a member of the Presidential Committee on Livestock Reforms, assured that the interests of poultry farmers were represented in the deliberations that led to the Livestock Development Ministry.

Earlier, the Poultry Association of Nigeria said over 30 per cent of poultry farms in Nigeria shut down in the last six months due to a high cost of operation that had contributed to the sharp increase in prices of eggs in the market.