The Ruga settlements quandary
It is rather difficult now to hold any decent and sensible conversation on the Rural Grazing Area (RUGA), the resettlement scheme for pastoralists herders recently announced to commence by the Federal Government. The hullabaloo that greeted the announcement and the controversy that ensued has rightly made the federal authorities to make a hasty and ungainly […]
It is rather difficult now to hold any decent and sensible conversation on the Rural Grazing Area (RUGA), the resettlement scheme for pastoralists herders recently announced to commence by the Federal Government. The hullabaloo that greeted the announcement and the controversy that ensued has rightly made the federal authorities to make a hasty and ungainly retreat. For those that might not know the antecedents of this laudable programme it would look like it was clumsy handling by its drivers that had brought it to this pretty pass.
May be so, but the facts on the ground show that the efforts by governments from colonial times to regularize pastoralists’ movements had been consistent. This was probably arising from the realization of the fact that the pastoralists’ cattle are a crucial national asset that not only contribute to the daily well-being of Nigerians but also to its national wealth. Successive governments also realized that to leave the pastoralists on their own would not only be untenable in this age of sedentary cattle rearing but it would also rob the nation their crucial contribution to the national wealth had they been properly organised.
These statistics tell the sorry story of the livestock industry in this country. We have such a large number of cattle, close to 20 million, with so little comparative economic output. And all that is due to the perennial trekking they undertake over long distances to find water and fodder without the complementary facilities such as veterinary clinics, etc. Apparently over time our cattle have evolved to be slow to multiply and also have very low milk yield. Nigerian cows are said to produce an average of 1 litre of milk compared to Kenya’s and South Africa’s 10 to 18 litres per cow per day. To worsen matters our cattle population have a higher rate of diseases incidences.
In a report by PwC, I found that our milk production estimated at 0.6m tonnes is abysmally low. We have a large human population and with an estimated meat consumption of over 1m metric tonnes as well as a milk consumption of 1.7m tonnes our production only meets about 34% of demand, leaving importation to make up the difference. And the cost of meeting up to this deficit in the last few years is a whopping $480.3 annually. This is an indication that beyond the other fringe problems afflicting the industry we shall soon have to face the urgency of upgrading of our national herd.
From times immemorial the relationship between pastoralists and farmers have always been tenuous warranting the state as the final arbiter to put in place measures to regularize their interactions. That is why gazetted cattle routes have been in the statute books for as long as many of us can remember. Also large expanses of land have been carved out and some gazetted as grazing reserves exclusively for herders to use. But these routes have steadily been overtaken by farmlands as our population increased thus pitching the pastoralist in a perpetual conflict with the sedentary farmers. And in those areas where land had been set aside as Grazing Reserves for pastoralist, they have also unfortunately been encroached upon by your usual land speculators. Many of the reserves have also been deserted due to lack of facilities.
However, in the recent years these deadly conflicts have become more frequent between farmers and pastoralists particularly in the north-central area and is now even deadlier in the north-west. Unfortunately, these kinds of conflicts have impact beyond the lives and livelihood of those directly involved. They disrupt and threaten the sustainability of both crop and livestock production in the country and erode the once mutually existing farmer-pastoralist relationship. The situation is worst especially when either the farmer or the pastoralist is categorised into a group relating to religion, tribe or region. This then becomes fodder for demagogic politicians and a veritable platform for election campaigns. Probably this is what had gingered the federal authorities to hasten the various plans to deal with the problems. I know that the Federal Ministry of Agriculture has since the 1980s been battling with various models of how to go about resettling the pastoralists.
It started with a pilot project to group herdsmen into cooperatives, settle them and provide infrastructure for milk collection and processing. The pilot project was established in Kaduna State in the 1990s and run by the National Livestock Project Division (NLPD) an arm of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture in conjunction with the World Bank. Despite impressive results, the pilot could not graduate into full project due to paucity of funds and had to be discontinued. However, Denmark and the Netherlands, both world famous milk producers, are now deeply involved in similar ventures in parts of the country with success. WAMCO, a Netherlands outfit, has been in Ibadan operating successfully the NLPD kind of arrangement through the Frieslandcampina, makers of Peak milk.
The Danish are not left out also. Since last year they have been involved in a project with the Kaduna State Government to run a settlement of 1000 families of herdsmen with 12000 head of cattle in a location where they would have veterinary attention, schools for their children and generally live as a small community. A Danish company, Arla Foods, will the buy the milk off the cattle farmers. The Danish government will bring investors through its Agricultural Counsellor in the country, while the Kaduna state government will provide initial infrastructure and funding.
And last year I had the privilege of inspecting a ruga-based ranch, the L&Z farms located at Fari village, a settlement with a string of rugas a few kilometres outside Kano on the Zaria road. The L&Z farm is a commercial ranch and they maintain a symbiotic relationship with the herding community clustered around Fari. The company has been able to attract the construction of milk collection centres for the communities built at strategic points with all the appurtenances including cooling tanks and solar panels to provide electricity. Some communities even have pasture farms complete with solar boreholes to provide forage so that the herds need not trek to distant places to feed. The herders are also provided with all modern extension services plus artificial insemination for their cattle – a crucial element in the efforts to upgrade their herds. The company also maintains an outlet in Kano city, the L&Z Dairy Fresh, which serves as the end of the chain that retails the products the farm products.
Discussing with the L&Z Managing Director, M D Abubakar, he pooh-poohed the romantic notion that pastoralists love wandering for fodder and water. The herders, he maintained rely completely on the dairy products of their herds for their economic wellbeing, which can only be maximized where good pasture and water are available all the year round. This is what L&Z and similar outfits around the country are doing to encourage pastoralists to settle. The Integrated Dairies in Vom, near Kuru in Plateau State is a similar outfit engaged in similar endeavour whose Farmfresh dairy products many are acquainted with. The Shonga Farms in Kwara State are many other outfits in Niger State are outfits that are all engaged in a successful cooperation with herding communities.
I believe the federal and state governments must find a meeting point to get these projects meant to resettle pastoralists off the ground.
I shall be visiting another dairy farming scheme in Kaduna this week. We shall pick up the discussion thereafter. Keep a date with this page.