Special Adviser to the President and National Coordinator of the Presidential Livestock Reform, Prof. Attahiru Jega, has warned that Nigeria risks acute protein deficits, heightened food insecurity, as the country’s N30 trillion worth sector is threatened by violent farmers-herders’ crises and poor investments in the sector. He stated this at the 2025 edition of the Blueprint Newspaper Annual Impact Series/Awards ceremony yesterday in Abuja.

Painting a bleak future for Nigeria’s food, security, and health sectors, the former INEC chairman said urgent closure of investment gaps and efficient policy coordination, among others, were the solution.

Jega said, though the Nigerian livestock industry was valued at approximately N30 trillion, ‘for far too long, the sector has suffered from chronic underinvestment, both in terms of public sector budgetary allocations and private capital infusion.

According to him, the livestock sector occupies a unique strategic position within the broader agricultural economy of the nation, contributing an estimated seven to nine per cent of agricultural Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and providing direct and indirect livelihoods to over 20 million Nigerians.

To maximally tap the potential, he said Nigeria must address deep-seated structural inefficiencies and invest massively and appropriately to overcome them.

ALSO, at the event, the Federal Government declared that the open grazing system for cattle and other animal rearing was outdated and no longer practised in many countries, urging Nigerians to embrace ranching for the development of the nation’s economy.

The Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, stated this at the event. Represented by the event’s Chairman and Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), George Akume, Alake said that adopting ranching could significantly reduce the ongoing farmer-herder conflicts in the country.

“Now, livestock is very important and essential to our economy because they have been dominant, but the way we practise livestock trade in this country has dragged our economy backwards.

“It has introduced a lot of tension in our politics and has given rise to farmer-herder clashes unnecessarily because we are not practising livestock the way it should be done in modern times,” he said.

The minister insisted that Nigeria needs to grow with the times and adopt modern means of livestock farming for global competitiveness in export income generation. (The Guardian)