With the launch of the African Sustainable Livestock (ASL) 2050 initiative, the Nigeria Livestock industry which has been largely untapped is set to take its rightful place in the economic development of the country; JOHN OBA writes
Livestock sector The livestock sector in Nigeria according to Wikipedia accounts for one third of the country’s agriculture GDP, providing income, employment, food, farm energy, manure, fuel and transport. This is also a major source of government revenue. Traditional livestock production in Nigeria is varied and complex.
The sector through taxation and export earnings from hides and skins generates income and provide job opportunities.
Livestock farming provides raw materials for various industrial branches such as meat, milk, egg, textile, wool and leather, which help in the establishment and development of sub-industrial branches such as feed, medicine and equipment that can be exported. Livestock farming enables utilization of idle workforce in business organizations especially for developed nations in the winter seasons during which no vegetative production activities takes place especially in agricultural organizations.
Since vegetative production relies on climatic conditions, livestock farming is a source of additional income for agricultural organizations. According to American International Journal of Contemporary Research 2015, livestock farming creates more than half of the value of the agricultural output in the world and one third of it in developing countries like Nigeria.
This contributes to rural livelihoods, employment and poverty relief. Neglect Though there is increasing demand for meat and other livestock products, the sector has been abandoned for nearly 30 years during which several other factors contributed to its continued decline.
Despite the importance of the sector, livestock output remains low. In the face of constraints posed by disease and ecological problems, government policies have not been successful in encouraging the development of basic technological and institutional changes necessary to exploit the potential that exists for an efficient growth of the sector. This aside, the way most policy makers and local investors often underestimate the contribution of livestock to GDP.
Their role as a source of farm power in the northern savanna zone and as a source of organic manure to boost crop production, as well as their efficient utilization of otherwise unuseable plants to produce meat, milk and other products, are often not considered. In spite of increased investment in agriculture in the country, livestock farming has been neglected for many years, this to an extent contributed to the herders/farmers crisis currently plaguing the country as livestock production in the country has been for centuries nomadic pastoralism before the advent of the colonial administration.
Trade in livestock and allied products according to statistic runs into billions of naira yearly, with millions of people ranging from transporters, marketers, butchers and meat sellers benefiting from livestock production mostly done by pastoralists and rural farmers.
Lack of investment has led to low productivity in the sector with Nigeria spending an estimated $1.3 billion on the importation of dairy products with a population higher than 200 million and an expected growth of over 400 million by 2050 means that there will be more demand for dairy and livestock products. Yet the country’s production potential in the sector is still rudimentary as major percentage of production are currently done locally, with the country still importing more than 70 per cent of its dairy products.
Yet an average cow in Nigeria is said to produce 1 kg of milk a day, showing there is still a long way to go before reaching self-sufficiency. Interventions Since inception, the livestock sector had not lacked interventions both at the continental, regional and national levels. But concerns have been the level of impact of these interventions on the sector. Policy intervention such as the Africa Union (AU) Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) that made livestock development a key component of its programme, so also is the AU Africa Policy Framework for Pastoralism. The ECOWAS Agriculture Policy (ECOWAP) also has a strategy for the development and transformation of the sector as component.
The National and Regional Agriculture Investment Plans (NAIP/RAIP) all have livestock development components that have yielded result.
However, experts believe the implementations of these interventions policy has been the major challenge as successive administrations seems to abandon them or better still ignore the livestock aspect of the policies in favour of other crop subsectors. Probably, this was why Nigeria was excluded from the recent $248 million regional action plan to promote pastoralism and livestock production in the Sahel by the World Bank, FAO and ECOWAS. Another aspect that most of these interventions ignore, is the effect of livestock on human health and his environment, hence the ASL 2050 is bound to address the issues. ASL 2050 launch Against the above background, it has become imperative for Nigeria to harness its livestock potentials to meet growing demands while also thinking beyond the sector for future of Nigerians.
Therefore, in an effort to solve this challenges, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in collaboration with the Federal Ministries of Agriculture and Rural Development, Health and Environment, have launched the Africa Sustainable Livestock 2050 (ASL 2050) that will provide a long term road map for livestock development in Nigeria by year 2050.
The project is expected to identify major challenges as well as opportunities associated with the long term development of livestock, identify policies and investments needed now, toward ensuring healthy livestock systems in the future. In his welcome address at the launch of the programme held in Abuja recently, the director, Department of Veterinary and Pest Control Services, at the Ministry of Agriculture, Dr. Gideon Mshelbwala, said the project is being implemented through a multi stakeholder, multi sectoral approach, involving continuous stakeholder engagement and consultation. He said three project documents have been developed under the Nigeria ASL 2050 and the documents will be reviewed and validated at a technical meeting.
FAO Representative in Nigeria, Mr. Suffyan Koroma, said livestock is a major component of all of the Organization’s activities in the country as it is one of the fastest growing agricultural subsectors. “According to data from the FAO, Animal Production and Health Division, by 2050 beef, dairy, poultry consumption are anticipated to grow by 117%, 557% and 253% respectively from 2010 levels.
Therefore, policy and instructional reforms should be developed building on solid data and evidence based analysis, to ensure that the opportunities generated by this growing market for animal sourced foods translate into widespread benefit for the populace including livestock producers, consumers and other actors along the value chains. Launching the project, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Bukar Hassan, who was represented by the Acting Director, Livestock Department, Dr. John Taiwo, said the implications of the country’s population growth by 2050 is increased demand for food, including meat, milk and egg which will lead to increase investment by producers in the livestock farming system and value chain. According to him, this investment will result in increased supply of animal sources food aimed at satisfying consumer demands.
“The impact of these investments on people’s livelihood, public health and the government will be significant as majority share of the rural household depend on livestock for their livelihood and over 75% of new emerging human infectious diseases are of livestock origin.
It is also estimated that livestock contribute about 14.5% to all human induced greenhouse gass emission.
“ASL2050 project aimed to facilitate dialogues, knowledge sharing, consultation among livestock, health and environment stakeholders in order to identify opportunities and threats associated with long term development of the livestock and to agree upon priority reforms and investment to create the capacity needed to ensure a sustainable development of the livestock sector in the next three decades.” he explained. Handling the project presentation ASL 2050 Nigeria, Mr Emmanuel Odunze, stated that ASL 2050 will support the generation of indicators to assess the impact of livestock systems on animal and human health, livelihoods and the environment
