New livestock plan to generate 350,000 jobs – ACCI President

The President of the Abuja Chamber Of Commerce And Industry (ACCI), Dr. Akajiugo Emeka Obegolu SAN, has stated that a new road plan for the livestock sector will generate employment opportunities of close to 350,000 in its first two years. Speaking during an interview on Trust TV, Dr. Obegolu, said the perfection of the plan […]

The President of the Abuja Chamber Of Commerce And Industry (ACCI), Dr. Akajiugo Emeka Obegolu SAN, has stated that a new road plan for the livestock sector will generate employment opportunities of close to 350,000 in its first two years.

Speaking during an interview on Trust TV, Dr. Obegolu, said the perfection of the plan will lead to the setup of a national fund or Livestock Development Fund, to make it easy for farmers and stakeholders in various stages of the value chain to access funds and develop the sector.

He expressed appreciation to the government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for extricating the livestock sector from the Ministry of Agriculture and establishing the Ministry of Livestock Development.

“So that is the step in the right direction so that focus will be placed on developing the livestock industry in Nigeria. The major thing is to establish the environment to enable private sector investments to come in.

“The government should not be the one to drive the development of this sector, but they should provide the framework, provide the policies that make it easy for the private sector investments to come in. They provide guidance, so to speak, and then the private sector will come in,” he said.

The ACCI President said with this, private sector is now ready and willing to partner with the public sector to ensure that the sector grows.

He added, “It is actually a N33trillion economy waiting to be tapped. From our engagement with the government, we started with looking at grazing to establish grazing reserves and ensure that open grazing is minimised so that animals could be put in certain feedlots and enable them to perform optimally both in beef and in milk production.

“Then we looked at the science behind livestock development, genetics, artificial insemination and veterinary services. And then we looked at the processing, meat processing and cold chain. So as the Minister for Livestock Development said at that summit, there is no reason why we should have cattle trekking from Katsina, from Yola down to Owerri or Bayelsa.

“Along that route the animals are not properly kept and it hurts that they lose weight. So we are looking at investing in processing plants to enable us, instead of trekking, we should have processed meat in cold chains taken down to the south. The ecosystem, the value chain for livestock is huge, from leather for shoes to milk and egg for growing school children and a whole lot.”