OPEN GRAZING: Herdsmen Give Condition For Ending Open Grazing

Save Our Nation (SON)

November 11, 2021

Pastoralists under the umbrella of the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore said they are willing and ready to quit open grazing in line with public suggestions if government will make financial and logistics provision for alternatives grazing for them.

The herdsmen admitted that open grazing is an outdated practice, but the pastoralists can’t suddenly quit the age-long practice because there’s no alternative way yet to feed their cattle. They promised to leave the farmlands as soon as ranches that are being proposed by some government officials, particularly southern state governors, are provided.

Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore brand Ambassador, Temitope Ajayi, made known the desires of the herdsmen when she led some officials of the Association on a courtesy visit to the Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen, in Abuja, on Thursday.

The Miyetti Allah brand Ambassador said the reason for her visit was to secure a partnership with the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs to support her agenda considering the position of women in nation building and development of the society.

She said: “Women as Mothers are known to be peace makers. Women and Children bear the brunt (effects) of herders/farmers crisis and all forms of battles and wars, they are the engine room of national development and therefore hold the key to the development of cattle breeding.”

She said her plan was for women Fulani pastoralists be mainstreamed into the Livestock’s Transformation programme of President Muhammadu Buhari, thus requesting for collaboration on her action plans for Miyetti Allah especially the launching of N200 billion cattle ranch intervention fund scheduled for next year April, 2022.

She, thus solicited the support of the Minister for her planned nationwide sensitization campaign to correct the wrong perceptions about the herdsmen and their nomadic practices.

She said there was need to re-orientate and change the mindset and perceptions of the Fulani herders, farmers and other entities in the country, modernize cattle breeding, thereby putting an end to outdated practices of open grazing and other nomadic activities, and bring them up to international best practice.

She said: “There’s no doubt that open grazing is an outdated practice. That has, largely, been responsible for the years of clashes between farmers and herders which has led to death of thousands of people and destruction of farmlands.

“We must know that ranching is the way out but the project is capital intensive. Most of these pastoralists can’t afford the cost of building these ranches. If government can support these people to build ranches, they won’t hesitate to leave the farmlands and retire to the ranches.”

She made reference to huge financial benefit of ranching and other job opportunities along the value chain, thus soliciting the support of the Ministry in her agenda to transform cattle business and end clashes with farmers.

She said: “For instance, I live in Silicon Valley, US. In all the civilized country that I had visited, there’s always a co-existence between cattle and human being. What it means is that there are ranches for cattle and comfortable place of habitation for human beings.

“California, a state in US exports more than $13 billion worth of cattle and other by-products annually. In California, a pint of fresh milk is more costly than a barrel of crude oil. There are some other by-products of the cattle that are used to generate electricity and other useful items.

“Brazil, Venezuela, Holland and several other countries grew their economy through cattle and other dairy products. These countries recognized that cattle business is a big business, and therefore divided it into three areas, namely, animal husbandry, dairy, abbatoir and grazing.

“Cattle business is the new found ‘crude oil’ that everybody must part-take in, so we could collectively grow our economy and create massive job opportunities. For instance, the south, west and east have fertile ground that can grow the grass for feeding these cattles.

“These grasses can even be processed, turned to pellet, packaged and send to cattle ranches in the north. We can even export these processed feeds to Arab countries where they don’t have such fertile ground to grow these grasses. Other opportunities can be created along the value chain.”