Kwara creates animal breeding unit in livestock development ministry

Kwara state government is set to create a dedicated unit for spread of knowledge on animal breeding among members of the public in the state’s ministry of Livestock Development towards addressing challenges associated with climate change and livestock development in the state.

Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq disclosed this at the end of a five-day capacity building programme on breed improvement and selection to confer resilience to climate-induced stresses in ruminants among selected 100 participants.

The training programme, organized by the state Livestock Productivity and Resilience Support (L-PRES) project in collaboration with Centre for Dryland Agriculture (CDA) had trained over 1,700 professionals in government and private sectors in the state so far.

Represented by the permanent secretary, ministry of Livestock Development, Alhaji Mohammed Yahaya, the governor said that it was expedient to develop a resilience method and strategy to adapt to climate change situation.

“Having a livestock breeding unit for the public is to serve as a centre for people to acquire knowledge of the innovation and resilience of livestock production. Over the years, we’ve experienced climate change and it has come to stay.

“Thus, we must develop a resilience method and strategy to adapt to the situation. And the situation does not concern only food crop or environment. It concerns livestock also. This training is on how to be resilient to the climate and the stresses on the ruminants to be able to develop a new strategy and method. And if not done, it could affect population of animals in the country. And to improve our economy, this needs to be done”, he said.

The permanent secretary, who described Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq as futuristic, said that the governor believed that “we should move with time”.

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“Also, this has to do with improving meat production in the state. Once you are able to develop a strategy.

 method and process for livestock development, definitely, it would boost meat production and bring about economic prosperity in the country”.

Also speaking, the lead consultant of the project, Dr. Abdulhakeem Ajeigbe of the CDA, said that the training has achieved its purpose so far.

“Though, the real impact will be obvious in the next two or three years, impacts are being felt even weeks after the training as participants are already commercialising new technology showed to them. E.g. production of salt lake and crop residue processing and commercialisation by some previous participants.

“The advantage is that the training is capacity building on things that are necessary. The training was directed at some of the challenges that people have. The end impact is expected to be in the increase in livestock production. Participants are already making more money. Quite impactful. There’s a silent green revolution going on in livestock in Kwara state.

Dr. Ajeigbe, who hailed commitment of the state government to livestock development, and with establishment of the ministry of Livestock Development in line with that of the federal government, said that the government also rolled out training programmes to boost livestock development.

“Livestock is contributing less than 30 per cent of the nation’s agricultural GDP, as against expected minimum of 45 per cent. This is scandalous. So, if we raise contributions of livestock GDP, it means overall agriculture GDP will go up. Agriculture has to be improved upon because it’s not subsistent agriculture that will create jobs. Until we commercial agriculture and that’s what Kwara state government is doing with the capacity building project and as I said, many of the beneficiaries have commercialised agriculture and are already creating jobs”.