Some state governments have said they are willing to coopearate with the federal government on the issue of grazing reserves as long as it does not breach existing laws in the country.
Angel Network news reports that President Muhammadu Buhari had recently set up a committee to review the 415 grazing reserves in the country.
Delta State Governor Ifeanyi Okowa said the state government had demonstrated the importance of inclusiveness in agricultural development through several programmes towards ensuring not only food security but creating several job opportunities.
Speaking through his chief of staff, Hon. Festus Ovie Agas, said that meeting the increasing food demand of a growing population requires innovation in food systems to increase food production, processing, security and other parts of the value chain, as well as addressing other critical areas, such as inequality and access to improved agro-input.
He lamented that Nigeria’s growing food insecurity may soon spiral to a tipping point on account of the threat posed by open grazing of cattle just as he berated critics on the ban of opening grazing of cattle, saying that a lot of money is being spent by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, to encourage farmers to ensure that the country is food sufficient but a lot of these efforts are lost because of insecurity.
He emphasized the importance of youth engagement and encouraged Deltans to embrace agriculture as an avenue to ensure sustained food security and steady earnings.
He said since farmers can’t go to farm, their crops are destroyed, they are maimed and raped and some are even killed.
“We cannot continue like this, because if you have a programme you are spending billions on, we must secure it and we must ensure the food security of this country,” he said.
He said there are 415 grazing reserves, only two are in the South — one each in Ogun and Oyo; 141 are gazetted, and the 141 that are gazetted are about 2.7 million hectares of land.
