Sokoto govt to empower 2,440 widows with animals for breeding

Sokoto State Government has disclosed that it’s set to empower no fewer than 2,440 widows and other vulnerable women across the state through the animal breeding scheme.

The State Commissioner for Animal Health and Fisheries Development, Prof Abdulkadir Junaidu, disclosed this in a chat with newsmen in Sokoto.

Professor Junaidu explained that the said beneficiaries will be drawn from all the 244 wards across the 23 Local Government Areas of the state. He added that the move is part of the State Government’s initiative in reducing poverty as well as improving the standard of living among women in the state.

Junaidu, a professor of Veterinary medicine said the empowerment is also meant to revitalize the famous Sokoto red goat species which he said will be disbursed to the beneficiaries for rearing to be self-reliance.

He further said, “we also have a program on Sokoto breed goats which is very common here. We intend to purchase a large number of them and distribute them to widows.

“We will give each of them like five, which will serve in the form of empowerment alongside the feeds for the animals and it is going to be a routine exercise to empower widows. Our plan is to pick 10 widows in each ward across the entire local government in the state”.

He also said, “we presently have about 50 cells in Wamakko local government and each of them can be managed by 3 or 4 people, mainly youth.

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He added that the State Government has recently taken delivery of 117 cattle from South Africa and distributed them to farmers in various part of the state for the breeding scheme.

He explained that the animals were given out at a subsidies rate of 50 per cent discount, which according to him have the capacity to produce between 40 and 45 litres of milk per day, unlike their local counterparts.

He disclosed that the state has not less than nineteen grazing reserves in which he said ten of those has already been gazetted leaving the remaining nine to be gazetted very soon.

The Commissioner further explained that the vast grazing reserves in the state are one of the major reason why the farmers in the state and the herdsmen leaves peacefully among themselves.