Federal Government, Friday said plans are on to transform the nation’s 417 grazing reserves into mini-towns with stable power supply, schools, healthcare facilities, markets, abattoirs, road networks, water, sanitation, communication facilities, security, irrigation facilities, veterinary services, feed production, and others. Minister of Livestock Development, Idi Maiha, said this at a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, signing with the Rural Electrification Agency, REA, to provide solar-powered grids to the reserves upon their rehabilitation and resettlement. Maiha also lamented that the grazing reserves have been abandoned for many years and no meaningful efforts to rehabilitate them in order to concentrate development of the livestock sector as movements of herds of cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and others were no more sustainable and invoke. And as a way to deescalate herder-farmer conflicts, the modernization through rehabilitation of the 417 grazing reserves became imperative, and the political will to kick start it had commenced and the signing of the MoU with REA will go a long way to change the narrative as more pastoralists will be resettled in the grazing reserves, and their migrations will drastically reduce as more resources will be provided for them in the grazing reserves.
He said: “Since coming on board, this ministry has had an extensive tour of the 417 grazing reserves in the country. We have had stakeholder engagement with pastoral communities, traditional rulers, the business community, and I’ve come to the full realization that pastoralism is being practiced today, nomadism is being practiced today, is no longer sustainable into the future because of a number of reasons. Climate change, acute competition for scarce resources, the national herd is improving in size, is increasing in size, and there’s so much demand and expectation for our livestock sector. We feel that the grazing reserves we have had in this country since before independence have been abandoned, and they have suffered various degrees of abandonment. We have come up with a model, what we call Renewed Hope Livestock Village, where most of these grazing reserves are going to be rehabilitated with a number of social amenities. One, we will build earth dams, many of them have earth dams that will need to be desilted for the cultivation of pasture throughout the year.
“We will put primary schools there for the children of the herders, we will build primary health care for the families of the herders, veterinary clinics, as well as other activities, and therefore, for the quality of life to improve on those areas, to incentivize the pastoralists to remain there and have access to other economic activities, we need to energize those areas. And the best way to do it is not to rely on a national grid. We have discovered there is a very competent federal government agency called the Rural Edification Agency. We had several discussions, and that led into writing up an MoU between them and us, and today, we have seen the culmination of that relationship, where the MoU has been signed. They will soon start rolling out the solar grids into some of these grazing reserves.We have already identified one, Wawazangi, in Gombe State. We have identified Wasem Plateau State. We have identified Gongoshin, Adamawa State, and we have identified Ka’u here in Bwari Area Council under the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, they are ready to roll out and improve the quality of life.”
He also said that the intervention is not only focused on cattle on grazing reserves, but other value chains in the livestock sector will be carried along. “In fact, millions of animals, millions of pastoralists, millions of animal keepers all over the country are going to enjoy this, and it is not only going to be limited to the grazing reserves. Wherever we have a cluster of animal keepers, whether you are doing piggery on a large scale, whether you are doing goat or sheep on a large scale, whether you are doing cattle on a large scale, even if you are not in the grazing reserves, once you are resident, you are domiciled there permanently, we will work with the state government and make sure that you get impacted by this MoU that has just been signed.” According to the Minister, rehabilitation of grazing reserves will be in phases, but the ones he had earlier mentioned are going to serve as pilots of the rehabilitation project. “We have 417 grazing reserves and there are various levels of disrepair, suitability, and other challenges but we are taking it pilot by pilot, and once we are able to rehabilitate and resettle those that I have mentioned, we will now take a study, see what are the weak points, strength points, where do we need to take because you can’t have one-size-fits-all solution, and this is the way to go”, he added.
Executive Secretary, Rural Electrification Agency, REA, Abba Aliyu, also on the sidelines of the MoU signing, explained that the livestock sector is a sector with the kind of conditions that demand the Agency’s deployment of infrastructure to boost productivity and sustain the community with renewable energy. “So the rural electrification agency is powering Nigeria and to power Nigeria you need to power some specific sectors of the country. We design different programs, we design energizing education, we design energizing agriculture, we also design a Programme to energize the security outfit but while we were studying we now realize that there is a very critical Ministry within that was recently created, which has a very significant impact on the work that we are doing, and that is why we started this work to work with the Ministry of Livestock Development to energize these grazing reserves and clusters because what we are always looking for is a cluster that has different elements of development. If you have a grazing reserve that has a primary health care, secondary school, rural communities, abattoir, market, this is a sweet honey for rural electrification agency. We deploy our infrastructure to energize that entire element, and that is why we are having this partnership.We don’t call it partnership but we call it a marriage of convenience”, he said.
FG to transform 417 grazing reserves into mini-towns with social amenities
