The Federal Government and African Union (AU) Member States, have taken actions to address Livestock Feed Shortages and avert future feed-related disasters.
The Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Sen. Aliyu Abdullahi, stated this at the Resilient African Feed and Fodder Systems (RAFFS) project meeting in Abuja.
Abdullahi, who reiterated the Federal Government’s commitment to support the outcome of the meeting, said the meeting also aimed to tackle the persistent farmer-herder clashes in Nigeria.
“I assure you of my total support and I look forward to the outcome of the important mission.
“I want to guarantee you that going forward, we are going to step up our action and ensure that this platform becomes the talk-about platform in Africa and beyond.
“This is a mission coming from the African Union Inter Africa Bureau of Animal Resources (AU-IBAR), to help us achieve that goal at the end of the day.
”We are expecting to have a very vibrant, productive and profitable feed and fodder industry,” he said.
Earlier, the Director AU-IBAR, Dr Huyam Salih, congratulated Nigeria, for taking the important step of establishing its National Feed and Fodder Multi-Stakeholder Platform(MSP).
Salih, who was represented by the Project Lead, AU-IBAR, Dr Sarah Ossiya, said this was in line with the decisions of African Heads of State and Government.
He said that the pivotal MSP would bring together all actors who are critical to shaping a structured and more functional feed and fodder sector.
“As we reflect on setting up of the Nigeria MSP, I invite us to consider a few critical questions:
”What is the current structure of Nigeria’s feed and fodder sub-sector versus Nigeria’s livestock or animal resources sector,” he said.
Salih said that each of the participants at the meeting was selected for their role, expertise and vast experience.
“Also, the understanding of Nigeria’s feed and fodder sub-sector as well as the linkages the country has to the region,“ he said.
He said that AU-IBAR would draw on the findings of the studies that were conducted to provide insights.
”However, it is the combined inputs and contributions to the different actors here today that will shape a useful, and functional MSP that will address the issues of feed and fodder in Nigeria.
”I call on all of us to provide insights and innovation in this process,” he said.
In a remark, the Director, of Animal Husbandry Services, Mrs Winnie Lai-Solarin said that the Animal Feed System in Nigeria, including the development of the feed and fodder document was awaiting validation.
She said that the MSP in Nigeria was coming at this time to help with the actualisation of the directive.
Lai-Solarin said that the RAFFS project resided in AU-IBAR, so activities were drawn at the country level.
She urged the participants to play an active role throughout the project to actualise the feed and fodder objectives.
A feed and fodder business development expert, David Maina, said that the objective was to bring in the industry players to form the multi-stakeholder platform.
He said this was because of the issues that had been identified as shared problems across the actors that have suffered great negative impact due to COVID-19, drought and conflict.
”The idea is to come up with the multi stakeholder platform that will continue to address the issues until we have a solution,” he said.
Maina said that to support the Ministry of Agriculture, four areas had been identified to address the issues to include; data, ecosystem, gender inclusion, and policy (to review and reform policies).
NAN
