Why indigenous cattle cannot produce 2 litre of milk daily – Prof. Sharubutu
Professor Garba Hamidu Sharubutu is the Provost, Federal College of Animal Health and Production Technology and President of the Veterinary Council of Nigeria. The one time President of Nigeria Veterinary Medical Association speaks to Daily Trust on Sunday on the ongoing debate on cattle ranching/colonies and what government can do to improve the livestock sector. […]
Professor Garba Hamidu Sharubutu is the Provost, Federal College of Animal Health and Production Technology and President of the Veterinary Council of Nigeria. The one time President of Nigeria Veterinary Medical Association speaks to Daily Trust on Sunday on the ongoing debate on cattle ranching/colonies and what government can do to improve the livestock sector.
There is a lot of controversy on the concepts of ranching, cattle colony, and grazing reserves can you explain them as applicable in Nigeria?
A ranch is a vast area of land provided for animals to graze on natural range. But you can define any subject matter within the context of what you want to achieve and so, what is termed ranch now from the perspective of our policy as a nation is livestock farming where you design a little place and keep your animals within a fenced area such that they would not be roaming around like the traditional system we are used to in trans-human pastoralism. So, a ranch for us, based on the policy that is being promoted is a confined area that will allow for the rearing of livestock and provide a grazing area of sole pasture and improved seed that would provide high nutrition, water and a small health care facility. But in a typical sense, a ranch is a vast area of land that is supposed to hold a large livestock that can be reproducing.
The idea of a grazing colony comes from the fact that if you have an aggregation of ranches put together, they form a colony. The government had wanted to promote this so that the communities where these ranches would be established can come together and form a colony of ranches. Therefore, having different ranches located in the same area so they become a colony of ranches not necessarily a colony that should be colonized by anybody as being speculated.
On the other hand, a grazing reserve was an attempt by our colonial masters to see how they could curtail the distraction of crops. The concept there was to use areas that are not fertile for crop production for grazing so that the typical herdsman does not leave that area and go to another area. That area will be registered. But because of the weather, when there is no water, the herdsmen will move through a definite path to the nouth where they can have access to water and other things. That was the initiative of the white men, and apart from that, they brought a policy to introduce the Fulani Amenity Programme because they understood that keeping the animal in one location (grazing reserve) does not actually solve the problem since the herdsmen will relocate from one place to the other in search of water. In the Fulani Aamenity Programme, the white men decided to provide what we call the livestock service center where they can have clinics, dams, etc, for the livestock. That was the concept of a grazing reserve and we have 417 of them that have been gazetted and known to exist but unfortunately they have been encroached onto.
What are the likely advantages of ranching or colonies as compared to the traditional pastoralism?
You see, pastoralism is more of a culture rather than a business. For anyone practicing pastoralism, you will find out that he is attached. His children, more often than not would not be going to school because they would continuously move from one place to the other. Secondly, the animals will waste the little resources they are consuming because they are undertaking one form of movement or another, so the movement wares away all the energy they are supposed to convert into feed. Pastoralism does not allow for the development of the cattle themselves, what we are seeing today as cattle are actually animals that have undergone improved breeding. The pastorals and the cattle are moving around and the cattle are mixing with all forms of animals so the good male will climb a bad female and vice versa. So, developmentally, the livestock system does not actually grow and that is exactly what we are faced with today. The implication of this is that we will continue to lose these animals and the inheritance of these people practicing pastoralism will keep reducing because they do not learn any other trade and they do not go to school the ultimate aim is to take to criminality. But with ranches, markets will spring up and because of that, economic activities will be boosted, it will be easy to transport the animals from one place to the other and people who sell feed will be there and those who want to fight diseases will be there so you don’t have diseases moving from one place to the other and it will be easy to take census of the animals.
On the other hand, the little advantage pastoralism has is that it allows for people who are not really rich to get a means of livelihood from rearing their animals. But definitely, that is not a sound economic venture. Another advantage of pastoralism again is that it is responsible for the reduction of the cost of the meat that we have today in this country because not much is invested in the animals in terms of feeding and so the per kilo price of livestock product does not put into consideration the cost of producing them. So, the cost of meat is relatively low because the investment put in producing them is not very high.
There are those who say the Nigerian breed of cattle is not good for ranching as such cannot produce the expected result. How true is this?
We have different breeds of animals and these breeds are characterized differently. For instance we have the Sokoto Gudali, Keteku, Balaji, Kauri, etc. All these breeds have their potentials. Some are good in milk production while others are good in meat production, among other potentials. Now, the feed conversion ability of our own indigenous cows are different and the ones that come from other countries are improved breeds produced through research. The problem is that we have not been able to invest in research to improve our own local animals. Any breed of animal that is not a good converter of feed cannot be used for ranching because ranching is a business while pastoralism is a culture. If one decides to confine OR’s kind of animals in one place (ranching) I can bet you that you cannot make the kind of profit you want. For example, our local cows, no matter what you do to them or feed you give them, cannot give you two liters of milk a day. But the foreign ones can give you 20 liters a day. It is just like our local chickens, no matter how you feed or nurture them, they can never give you the desired eggs because they have not been improved upon. So, if we must go into ranching, we must improve on the breeds of animals because it will be pure business.
Some people have criticized the Federal Government for meddling in what they say is a private business of the herders. What is your take on that?
What brought about this is actually the issue of indegenshisp and settlership syndrome and people are manifesting them in different dimensions. There is no how government cannot be involved in cattle business. Look at a taxi driver for instance, he relies on the road constructed by the government. Is the taxi not his private business? Government can create an enabling environment for any business and then ask you to pay tax. Government has been promoting cassava, rice and other crops, is farming not a private business? Government constructs some dams strictly for irrigation, like the Hadejia River Basin, Benue River Basin, and others. These river basins are constructed by the government to assist the farmers and all government needs to do is to create an enabling environment for business, no matter what it is. By so doing, employment opportunities will be provided for people. One of the greatest mistakes government made was the abandoning of the cattle tax. Just look at the cattle market, everybody will come and dump their cattle for sale without tax; cattle business can’t grow that way. Government should also regulate animal rearing or grazing. It could come up with a law banning night grazing, or that people of certain ages should not be rearing animals.