NAN-H-49
Conflicts
By Kudirat Ogunyemi/Philomina Attah
Abuja, July 24, 2017 (NAN) The National Animal Production Research Institute (NAPRI) has solicited partnership with the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to stop pastoralists and farmers clashes in Nigeria.
NAPRI sought the partnership when its delegation led by the Executive Director, Prof. Clarence Lakpini, paid courtesy visits to the two institutions on Monday in Abuja.
At the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Lakpini said that the conflicts between pastoralists and arable farmers were of national concern.
This, he said, led to the Ministry of Agriculture to set up a ministerial committee for transformation of grazing reserves to ranches.
He said the whole idea was to look for possible ways of ending the continued clashes between the two groups in the country.
“ The livestock sector in West Africa contributes six to eight per cent of the Gross Domestic Products (GDP) and 20 per cent to 25 per cent of the agricultural GDP.
“ This is a socio-economic strength that can be harnessed to create jobs and ensure food security for the Nation.
“ This is the time to put in place a strategic sustainable intervention mechanism to avert more serious conflicts in the future,’’ Lakpini said.
According to him, NAPRI has been mobilising critical stakeholders to evolve a holistic strategy and ensure implementation of applicable solutions to the challenges.
“ We can approach the challenges through training of pastoralists by skills acquisition of modern animal husbandry techniques.
“ Encouraging and training of youths in livestock value chains as small and medium enterprises.
“ we will be developing a NAPRI integrated livestock model farm project which can be out-selected for cluster livestock farmers in states that provide the land and encourage partnership with private developers.
“ The private developers, whose expertise and resources are used to establish pastures, provide feeds and other inputs like biological and drugs within the vicinity of the cluster farms, ‘’ he added.
He said that the Foreign Affairs Ministry would open relations with other countries in the region and globally which they considered auspicious to seek partnership with.
According to him, the aim is to break through the malady caused by the prevailing livestock husbandry system.
“ To achieve the goal of developing the NAPRI Integrated Livestock Model Farms Project and out-scale to states, we need foreign technical and investment partnership to be synergised.
“ These will help us develop our beef, dairy, poultry, sheep and goat products to meet export international standards.
“ We need the ministry’s support in raising funds toward the launch for infrastructural development for national livestock training aimed at raising N5 billion,’’ he said.
In his response, Mr Sola Enikanolaiye, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who received the NAPRI delegation, said an inter ministerial committee within ECOWAS had deliberated on some of the issues raised by the Executive Director.
“The herdsmen and farmers are all involved in agriculture.
“ Government is concerned about the relationship between these two groups in a sector that is so critical that their relationship has not been too good recently because of conflict and attacks.
“ Government is already taking measures to address challenges through various options. We will listen to you because you are all experts.
“Tell us what should be done to stop the attacks and conflicts between herdsmen and farmers for a permanent solution,’’ he said.
The permanent secretary said that the foreign affairs ministry was Nigeria’s window to the world.
“Every aspect of government policies and programmes has a foreign policy component and the ministry must ensure that government policies are adhered to,’’ Enikanolaiye said.
He added that NAPRI has a very important role to play in terms of employment generation and domestic food self sufficiency.
“If a country like India can feed itself with their large population with very little importation of food, there is no reason why our country cannot feed itself and export and become food basket for not just Africa but the rest of the world.
“ For us at the ministry, I believe we can partner in three areas such as learning from other countries in terms of global best practices to achieve our objectives of exportation,’’ he said.
The team, which also visited the CBN, was received on behalf of the governor by Mr Sani Mohammed, Deputy Director, Development Finance Department. (NAN)
APA/ROK/AOS/OJO
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(Edited by Bayo Sekoni/Mufutau Ojo)