Maiha: Our Mandate In Livestock Ministry Is To Attract Investors

Idi Mukhtar Maiha, Minister of Livestock Development, in this interview with TAIWO HASSAN, speaks on issues around the country’s livestock industry and what the ministry is doing to make it acceptable to Nigerians and investors

 

What has the Livestock Development Ministry been doing since its creation as a full blown ministry?

To sensitise ourselves to our new mandate. Establish the necessary structures. Get the competences that are required and local consultations and understand fully the Presidential Committee on the Implementation of Livestock Farming Co-Chaired by Professor Jubril Attahiru Jega, so that we can understand three things;

One; what are the low hanging fruits that need immediate action? Two; what are those things needed in the immediate short-term? Thirdly; what are the long-term goals? So basically, these are what we have been busy doing since the creation of the Livestock Development Ministry by President Bola Tinubu in 2024.

One of the key things you promised to do is on livestock modernisation. What is in that package to modernise the country’s livestock industry?

To modernise something; that is, to move something from Point A to Point B you need to understand what is in the context of Point A. Where are we coming from? Our livestock sector since Independence and till date.

In fact, the agricultural programmes, they never even mentioned a single line on livestock if you go back to the time of Nigeria’s independence.

And we have it on record, the books are there, the programmes are there. Livestock was taken for granted. However, with this and the creation of this ministry, we now have that intention to focus intensely on livestock sector development.

Like I said, where are we coming from? This country is endowed with a large number of livestock. We start mentioning for instance from rabbits, poultry, sheep, goat, pig, camel, fonkeys, horses, and cattle.

Now, if you look at piggery, poultry, and the other micro livestock, we have a huge number than any other country. Even by international standard, we are occupying number 10 or thereabouts.

But again, when you juxtapose that against the other natural endowments, the vested arable lands, I don’t believe that there is no land that is not arable, so everywhere is arable land, including the water system, the weather and above all, the internal market, it is huge.

Despite all these endowments, and all these arable resources, we have failed to realise the values and importance of the livestock sector until recently. The practice has been very very traditional.

Those who had cattle are still sticking to traditional grazing. They now graze from point A to point B in search of greener pasture and water. The breed is still traditional breed. Their performance is below standard.

Our milk production is very very low in this country and one of the lowest in the world. Carcass rate is also very very low. And of course, the performance of even our platinum horses compared to optimum quality horses.

So the whole idea today is to modernised this sector. It is a question of upscaling the performance of these resources. So how do you upscale here? For instance, let me take the example of the cows. It is already known that our cows hardly give you two, or three litres of milk in a day.

Whereas, countries that are not even milk producing do better in milk production. And what I mean by milk producers, they are those ranchers and other dairy farm operators, who have the capacity to acquire a very milky breed whose performance today is in contrast to our own local breeds as they produce 30, 40, 50, 60 litres of milk per day from one cow alone, while ours is doing two litres per day.

So that is what I mean by breed performance. If you look, for instance, carcassonne, their bull hardly reach 380kg or 400kg.

By the time you process that animal its only 55 per cent of valuable milk, the rest are back orders. By the time all the breeds are doing 400kg or 600kg of milk, so you can see the disparity that I am talking about.

Again, if you look at it in terms of management perspective. If you dig down, you will find out that the rate of growth from birth is forecast in these breeds.

Ours is that the ratio of our animals is still very very suboptimal. So these are the types of processes we are talking about.

So if you juxtapose it with this one from the genetically, not beneficial animals we have, and now graze them, the process of migrating them to a modern high performing livestock is what we mean by modernisation.

But how do you achieve that? Let me give you an example, if a cow moves today for one kilometer, it is losing 12 kilo calories because of that exercise of moving.

Now, if all our animals are moving, how can they with that expended energy lost? So the energy balance is negative and animal requires that energy quantum to transform into milk or body weight.

So the movement of our cows have already drains all the reserve energy that would have gone into manufacturing of milk or body weight.

Can you share with us all that goes into breeding that makes it become more productive for milk production?

Yeah, the genetic component is key. But again, the issue of nutrition is also a big factor because basically, when the animals move about, they are just moving, they are not grazing, they just pick whatever they can get along the way.

So there is no particular area that you scale in grazing area that is rich in terms of density of available highly nutritious grasses it’s not there they are just moving and picking things along the way. So you cannot call that grazing they are just migrating.

So again, the issue here is how to ensure proper grazing. And it has been demonstrated that even the local breeds if they are moving through if you take them to a ranch or a dairy farms you will see that breeding is not there, it is eliminated.

And there supposed to be in that ranch sufficient high quality feeds, good veterinary and health practices and others. That they improved here is limited by genetic.

So basically, this is what I am saying, that look, instead of remaining with that local breeds you need to cross it, inject superior genetic so that you can add to their performances.

Now, let me give you an example, I know how to drive if you take me to a grand prix and give me a Lamborghini, can I win that race, No? If you take a champion to a grand prix and you give him a Beetle of the 1960s, to the grand prix to compete along with Lamborghini, can it win that race, No? He cannot.

So it’s a function of two factors; number one, the genetic factors have to be improved. And number two, the managing practices have to changed.

Now, based on what you are saying, are we going to see an end to open grazing in the country with this Livestock Development Ministry?

Basically, our intention is that if we want to modernise the country’s livestock industry you have to be proactive. Number one, encourage people to invest.

By encouraging people to invest like investors in this country who have seen the values in livestock value chain and wants to go in.

That way, you can quickly settle your gestational period to modernise the sector. But looking at the fact that, more than 85 per cent of the cattle resources in the livestock sector in the country are in the hands of the pastoralists we cannot neglect that.

We also have to put in place an MoU with them. And the MoU will spell this out. We know all the grazing reserves in this country they are about 417 they are all located in local governments and to be able to access this, we need technical engagements with the state governors, local governments chairmen and community leaders.

To access those grazing reserves, without knowing what is there in terms of their readiness to receive animals, give them infrastructure for house husbandry for them and their families.

So what we are going to do here, those grazing reserves, we will have to re-grazed them. By regrazing, I mean we get local and digestive species of grasses that

This country is endowed with a large number of livestock. We start mentioning for instance from rabbits, poultry, sheep, goat, pig, camel, fonkeys, horses, and cattle

can be bought in this country and they are so many, put them there, build the capacity of the pastoralists themselves to make sure the place is habitable to live, spending their time there, provide cleaning portable water for the animals, provide social and economic amenities for them to remain there.

Now, we intend to create out of these grazing reserves, a hub of economic activities like agriculture clusters, where it can attract other business interests in terms of milk processors, packaging, quality transportation, Abbatoir etc. So this is the intention of the Ministry.

The four grazing reserves were established in 1957 even before Independence. Between that time and now, we have a total lands of 4.3 million hectares of lands under the grazing reserves that are gazetted whereas, others are not gazetted.

And so, we need to have proper conversation with the executive governors, local governments chairmen and community leaders under the Federal Government system, so that we have understanding that look, this cannot continue as business as usual and you cannot changed a moving object.

You cannot bring breeding improvements if animals are moving all about, you need them in a particular place so that we can have the data of these animals for economic boosts.

Are you saying now that in the long term, we are going to see an end to open grazing in the country?

Exactly, this is the intention of Mr. President. That is the mandate of this ministry and for its creation.

For us to realise the full benefits of our livestock resources in a gradual process, this is the ultimate aim of the ministry so that we can realize the full benefits at the end of the day.

So let me give you an example, for instance, in a city where everybody is slaughtering animals anywhere, the byproducts of that animals you are slaughtering, all of them have become value.

If for instance, in a city of 20,000 people, every animal that you slaughtered in a designated abbatoir, by legislation and by enforcement and by the driving force of the needs to get value for the products.

The blood of every animal that you slaughtered do go to making fisheries industry. If you de-boned a animal, that is, you removed the meat from the bones, the bones, the hips, the horns and all byproducts are values to other industries in the country.

The hide and skin itself here when you estimated today is money. The value of hide and skin in the country today is about N23 billion and there is also a potential to create 700,000 jobs for people.

But so dis-incentive is there is no obligation as we don’t aggregate the blood, we don’t aggregate the waste which goes in making manure fertilizer, we don’t aggregate the skin, we don’t aggregate the horns, we don’t aggregate the hips, we don’t aggregate the bones, so all these are byproducts that are valuable in animals.

But if you go to any standard abbatoir internationally, nothing go to waste. And the same thing goes to poultry industry, even in the poultry industry, feathers are being exported to other countries or can be used internationally.

So all these are processes for modernisation where people can gain economic monies. And the whole intention here, is we want to transform this industry into a vibrant, sustainable, and internationally competitive industry that can create jobs for our people.

Look at the value chain I just mentioned. If for instance, in this city, we are slaughtering 5,000 cattle everyday, imagine the amounts of blood that can now be channeled to a field of fish users who now use the blood.

But if you slaughter these animals in different places, you cannot aggregate the amount of paint of their blood. Like, one liter there. One litre in Gwagalada, another litre in Nyanya, another litre in Suleja, it cannot happened. So we need to put livestock in the right perspective in Nigeria.

Are you not bothered your ministry may not actually achieve all of these things you have mentioned? Is the ministry planning to partner with some other agencies? Or what is the way out to achieving these laudable reforms?

The ministry is not going to do that. Our mandate is to create that enabling environment for investors, local and foreign to come in and revitalise the livestock sector.

And we have seen the apatite from these foreign investors. For instance, since the time we returned from Brazil, towards the ending of last year, we have seen a lot of interests from both foreign and locals in our livestock sector.

And there has been a lot of intentions before too, but somehow, it didn’t just germinate. We are not the ones to run the livestock sector business, ours is to provide that enabling environment, like ease of doing business, infrastructure, legislation, etc and then also, trying to de-risk the environment.

We are going to have stakeholders engagements with lots of development finance onstitutions (DFIs). And this is going to generating interest because hitherto, people have been in the dark in the livestock sector value chain and I do believe many people didn’t even know that the blood of animals that being slaughtered in the abbatoir is feeding another industry.

Nobody knew that horns of a cow, bone is de-boned, even the waste of a cow, are being exported out of this country and many people didn’t know.

So our own mandate is to blow this out openly and put it in the public domain, so that people can say look, this is an opportunity for me, let me go in.

Look at growth of pasture (grass) that Cattle eats. I personally sold bags of grasses in this country and the demand is still very high. Just growing pasture grass alone is a enough business for you, particularly, if you want to make it commercial, there is potential opportunity.

Countries from the Middle East have approached us that they want to export grass from Nigeria. That in itself is a big business. And if companies want to go into commercial grass cultivation and, it can also triggers into equipment leasing.

Because if you are into pasture grass plantation of 2,000 or 3,000 acres of lands, you definitely know you will need tractors as somebody with business resume, you will need tractors, rakes, molders, trunking, and many others.

So instead of you trying to buy tractors, just focus on calculative pasture growing, for somebody doing the leasing equipment just pick up your phone and call him, I have 2,000 acres of lands and I want land recuperation and he can come and do it for you.

So the tithing, and the burden of owning an equipment and maintaining them yourself is talking off you. So that is taking off you so that is another business on its own. On the logistics itself, we are talking about cold chain.

If for instance, we processed meat in Kano and that meat should come to Abuja, it’s cold chain. That is another business that people are not even looking at at this moment in the livestock sector.

Look at the dairy sector for instance, milk has the shortest life span if you take milk out of a cow, in a minute it will gone bad. For not going bad, you catch up with something that won’t make it to happen.

So again that is another business in cold chain transportation, which is packaging. So, the ministry is there to create that enabling environment for investors to come in. That is our duty.

That is our mandate, and that is why we started to have talks engagements to sensitize people on the importance of this ministry, the centrality of this ministry and the intention of Mr. President to modernise this industry.

How does your ministry intend to deal with the farmers/herders clashes in the agric sector?

There were times this crisis was not there in our history as a country. So it is a combination for scarce resources.

You know animals have to eat, every human beings have to eat too. Now, the tendency here is like go and look for where you can graze your animals and watered your animals and in the process you encroached on someone’s farms to graze your animals.

There used to be a traditional conflict resolution mechanism in the old days and that mechanism was that nobody have privileged to their homes. If your areas have been encroached, your farm has been violated, or your crops have been eaten by animals, do not attack immediately.

Whereas, report to the relevant authorities where you can lodge your complaints. And this had worked for us as a country since the 60s and early 70s.

So I witnessed this as a child till growing up to the present. I witnessed this. Nobody dare took laws into their hands then.

That is one. Number two, overtime there have been issues of compromises here and there and that mechanism- traditional conflict resolution is somehow dropped down because of certain compromises here and there.

So people decided and said look, if I go there to the authorities to report, I will not get justice. But sensibility can work, while in-sensibility cannot bring it.

What I mean here is this, By resorting to self help, you are just escalating the issue beyond proportion and that is what we have been witnessing in the country as present.

Everybody is now getting away with the law of impunity where the herder who graze in the farmer’s land and the farmer will tell you, I will retaliate and there is reprisal attacks here and there and before you know it, it becomes a huge gunfire that consumes communities, destroyed properties, lives and businesses.

Otherwise, we have all lived and known the values of livestock in our entire lives. Animals need spaces, human beings need spaces, there is no way you can run a ranches without a giving area.

Even if helicopter wants to land and take off, it need a space. So therefore, the farmers need a space and the Herders need a space. So how do we come to agreement terms, so we need that traditional conflict resolution mechanism by stakeholders engagements.

We have designed a radio program learning from past events, from other reports and then by different sectors of the societies.

And would you believed that by the time we mount a very very intensive campaigns, sensitization and we cannot do it by sitting in Abuja, we have to go through the state governments, in particular, local governments and the traditional system.

We do know that and I do know that, every Herder belongs to one association or the others. We have Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), CONCRAN and we have the Animal System.

Through these institutionalized associations, we should be able to reach them and have stakeholders engagement meetings with them.

So it’s not a question of just embarking on a solution, but it’s a question of look, this is what is happening in the country it is bringing a lot of havoc, it is bringing bad international image to us and it is something that we should be able to manage, so let’s understand and build confidence.

We may come out with systems, but I don’t want to go into that, like compensation here and there. And then, let me give you an example, in Kenya today because those people into wildlife protection NGOs, if your Lion attacks a Mosaic Cow you must have the power to take over the key to the Lion den gate and go after the owner’s Lion’s land.

When he says No to your requests, defending that this Lion has to eat and this is the Lion’s food (cow meat) and the cow the Lion killed belongs to you so we will compensate you for your cattle and leave the Lion to go.

And that is how they have been able to maintain the large Lions population there. So we can borrow leaf from there, is a matter of justice it is an issue of social justice both the herder and farmer.

And I believe by the time they see empirical evidence of this being done by the Federal Government of Nigeria so people would say look, violence is not even the last resort. It’s not last resort at all.

The issue is that if there is a conflict, there is a conflict resolution mechanism which ought to be idea in the fields. With the local governments and the community leaders, we should be able to monitor this and say look this is not the way to go about it.

The many violence had led us to nowhere. Destruction of lives and property, lost of trust and confidence, stigmatization, profiling e.t.c. We should stop that and begin to navigate. We need to have a farmer and we need to have a herder in livestock sector for prompt growth and development.