THE Federal and Edo State governments, through the National Animal Identification and Traceable System, NAITS, a scheme under the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, have developed a partnership that would check herdsmen-farmers clash and other vices that had led to cases of killings, kidnapping, destruction of farms and others.
Speaking at a stakeholders’ engagement in Benin City, Edo State on animal identification processes and inherent benefits, state Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Stephen Idehenre, said Governor Godwin Obaseki’s administration keyed into the scheme because it would boost his MEGA (Making Edo Great Again) initiative to re-launch the state into national reckoning.
Represented by the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Dr. Peter Osagie, he hoped the scheme “will help end incessant clashes and dignify our livestock system, boost our productivity and acceptance outside the shores of the country.”
Earlier, Group Company Secretary and Legal Adviser of Mega Corp Nigeria Limited and Gamla Group, Elonna Ezulu said the scheme would reform the sector in line with global practices.
He said: “For a long time, Nigeria has been inundated with incidents of clashes between herders and agriculturists and the farmers and also, the issue of a stealing of cow, this is mostly because there is no data, no means of identification.
“People steal other people’s cow, sell in the markets and are slaughtered and the cases close. And in the global village we are in today, a lot of issues, borders are no longer a limit to inter relationship between nations.
“We see a lot of diseases, infections and other things, they move from one jurisdiction into the other. So, until we are able to develop this sector and make sure that we have proper data for planning, it’s a difficult thing.
On checking clashes, he said with the identification marks on the cow, anyone that strays into farms could easily be detected and know their routes through which they came.
Earlier, Chief Operating Officer of ranch ID, which is the NAITS operations management centre, Uchenna Ononye took the participants on the merits of the scheme and the processing for registering and tagging of the animals.
