The Federal and Edo State governments have developed a partnership that would check herdsmen farmers clash and other vices that have led to cases of killings, kidnaping and destruction of farms.
The scheme, National Animal Identification and Traceable System (NAITS), is under the federal ministry of agriculture…..CONTINUE READING
Speaking at a stakeholders engagement in Benin City yesterday, on animal identification processes and inherent benefits, the Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Stephen Idehenre said the Governor Godwin Obaseki’s administration keyed into the scheme because it would boost his Make Edo Great Again programme (MEGA) to re-launch the state into national reckoning.
The Commissioner who was represented by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Dr Peter Osagie, said he hoped the scheme “will bring an end to incessant clashes and dignify our livestock system, boost our productivity and acceptance outside the shores of the country.”
Speaking to journalists in an interview, the Group Company Secretary and Legal Adviser of Mega Corp Nigeria Limited and Gamla Group, Elonna Ezulu, said the scheme would reform the animal sector in line with global practices.
“For a long time now, Nigeria has been inundated with a lot of incidents of clashes between both herders and agriculturists and the farmers and also, the issue o stealing of cows, this is mostly because there is no data, there is no means of identification.
“People steal other people’s cows, go and sell in the market, the slaughter and the cases close there. And in the global village we are in today, a lot of issues; borders are no longer a limit to inter relationship between nations. We see a lot of diseases, infections and other things, they move from one jurisdiction into the other. So until we are able to develop this sector and make sure that we have proper data for planning, it’s a difficult thing. So that’s why at the federal level, the company and the Ministry of Agriculture were able to come together to agree on a means of animal enumeration, it is not going to be limited to only cattle, it is meant to cover most animals.”
Explaining how the scheme would check clashes herders and farmers, Ezulu said with the identification marks on the cows, anyone that strays into farms could easily be detected and knows their routes through which they come.
Speaking earlier, the Chief Operating Officer of ranch ID which is the NAITS operations management centre, Uchenna Ononye, took the participants on the merits of the scheme and the processes for registering and tagging of the animals…..CONTINUE READING
