FEDERAL GOVERNMENT POISED TO TAKE THE LEAD IN HARNESSING IDENTIFICATION AND TRACKING MECHANISMS IN THE LIVESTOCK SECTOR.

The Honourable Minister of Livestock Development, Idi Mukhtar Maiha, has given the assurance that Nigeria will take the lead among African countries in harnessing grazing  identification and tracking mechanisms in livestock development in Africa.

The Minister disclosed this  when the Managing Director,RadioFrequency Identification R(FID) and his team visited him  in Abuja.

According to the Minister, it has become a challenge that the country is unable to manage the number of  livestock in the country due to poor breeding and maintenance.

Nigeria faces significant challenges in managing its large livestock population estimated at over 50 million cattle and millions of smaller ruminants due to the combination of deeply entrenched traditional practice.

This he said, includes insecurity,  weak infrastructure and policy implementation failure,  which has  historically suffered  neglect and lack of investment, compared to crop farming, leading to reliance on nomadic open grazing rather than modern sedentary ranching.

Regarding the challenges faced in the course of rearing animals/livestock in the country, the Minister mentioned some strategies and features that can be adopted to stem the tide, which includes, tracking, traceability, proof of ownership, and exportation amongst others.

Overcoming  the   challenges  of  livestock  development  in  Nigeria,  he  explained  that it ,requires   a multifaceted approach that modernizes traditional systems,strengthen infrastructural development and resolve land disputes across board .

The Honourable Minister assured the visiting team that the country will do all within its capacity in ensuring that the Ministry sets up an in-house Committee that would look into the issues  raised during the course of the presentation and come out with reasonable  strategies and modalities of  Identification  and tracking of  Cattle.

"This would be achieved by harnessing all the innovative technology available in the process and also identifying suitability  to our environment, in order to enhance socio-economic value chain management in the sector" Maiha added.

According to the Minister, the challenges are quite enormous but the present administration has taken bold steps to deal with them holistically.

He therefore commended Mr. Daniel Omofoman, the Leader of team and assured him that the Ministry will collaborate with their Organization to further strengthen and firm up the process of identifying and tracking mechanisms in Nigeria.

He  called  on  the  Technical  Committee  to  come   up  with  innovative  ideas  of  tracking  and identifying the visibility of Animals in the country and bring them to speed for effective implementation.

Speaking earlier, the Managing Director of the Radio Identification Frequency, Dr. Daniel Omofoman , informed the Minister that the purpose of their visit is to get the endorsement of the Hon. Minister on Animal Livestock and identification system as a national priority for live digital reconstruction.

Furthermore , his Organization would collaborate with the Ministry technologically to achieve digital infrastructure that would bring sustainable development goals in line with the mandate of the Ministry.

He also sought the Minister's approval and adoption of R(FID) as an Identification and tracking Project for visibility of livestock as a National priority in Nigeria.

Henrietta Okokon
Deputy Director Press/ Public Relations
7/4/26