Onome Amuge
Long-standing conflicts between farmers and pastoralists in Nigeria have resulted in widespread violence, displacing communities, destroying farmland, and depleting livestock. Driven largely by competition for resources such as grazing land and farmland, these clashes have claimed millions of lives and continue to threaten rural economies and food security.
Amid the long-running farmer-herder conflict, experts highlight a largely overlooked opportunity in Nigeria’s underdeveloped $1 billion feed and fodder industry, considered as a potential catalyst for boosting the livestock sector, promoting national stability, and unlocking economic growth.
According to agricultural specialists and livestock experts, with the right infusion of investment and well-directed policy, this dormant sector has the potential to transform the rural landscape, offering a pathway to peaceful coexistence, enhanced food security, and greater resilience for rural communities.
Fodder, comprising dried hay or straw, serves as essential feed for cattle and other grazing animals. While the northern regions of Nigeria possess considerable natural advantages for fodder production, the industry remains largely underdeveloped, characterised by traditional methods and a lack of robust market infrastructure.
In a bid to chart a course towards sustainable peace and economic advancement, leading experts from across the African continent, under the umbrella of the African Union Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR), recently convened in Abuja. Notably, their mission was to brainstorm strategies on how Nigeria, and by extension the wider continent, could unlock the immense potential of this overlooked sector. The central theme of their discussions was ‘’Harnessing Feed and Fodder Data for Sustainable Livestock Sector Development, Resilience, and Stability.’’
Huyam Salih, the director of AU-IBAR, underscored the critical juncture at which Nigeria finds itself, urging the nation to seize this natural investment opportunity as a means of extricating itself from the persistent and devastating farmer-herder crisis.
The recent high-level forum, she explained, focused on boosting fodder production, establishing a comprehensive and reliable national feed inventory and balance sheet, and developing a sophisticated data dashboard to effectively monitor feed availability across six key African countries, with Nigeria at the forefront.
This comprehensive initiative, Salih emphasised, is strategically designed to propel livestock sector development, bolster overall food security, and stimulate significant growth within the currently underutilised feed and fodder industry.
“The project involves developing a feed and fodder dashboard to capture crucial production and availability data, thereby empowering governments to take timely and informed corrective action to support the sector,” Salih elaborated.
“This vital dashboard will play a critical role in identifying existing gaps and potential shortages, enabling the implementation of effective early warning systems to mitigate crises,” she added.
The scope of this ambitious project spans a diverse range of agro-ecological zones across the continent, including Nigeria in West Africa, Cameroon in Central Africa, Uganda, Somalia and Kenya in East Africa, and Zimbabwe in Southern Africa.
A key outcome of this collaborative effort was the official handover of the National Feed Inventory Database and Dashboard to the Federal Ministry of Livestock Development. This cutting-edge digital platform offers real-time, granular data on critical parameters such as feed availability, prevailing market prices, quality standards, and distribution patterns across the entirety of Nigeria. Idi Mukhtar Maiha, the minister of livestock development, hailed this initiative as a game-changer for the sector.
Maiha lauded the collaborative effort for providing the livestock sector with the essential tools needed to ensure consistent feed security and, crucially, to attract much-needed private sector investment.
“These dedicated efforts have culminated in a scientifically validated Feed Inventory and Fodder Balance Report that provides a clear and comprehensive picture of our existing feed resources, identifies critical gaps, and highlights significant opportunities for growth and investment,” the Minister stated.
With the implementation of the new digital dashboard, the Ministry has ambitious plans to significantly strengthen institutional capacity within the sector, actively promote robust private sector participation, and mainstream the effective use of feed data at all levels of planning and implementation.
“Working together, we can forge a vibrant and dynamic feed and fodder industry that not only robustly supports our national food security objectives but also strategically positions Nigeria as a dominant livestock powerhouse on the African continent,” Maiha affirmed.
Laban MacOpiyo, a seasoned animal production and natural resource management expert at AU-IBAR, speaking at the high-level feed and fodder inventory and investment forum in Abuja, addressed the economic value that Nigeria could unlock by effectively mobilising and trading its currently underutilised biomass resources. He advocated for the development of thriving rural feed markets and the establishment of efficient pelleting industries, coupled with comprehensive training programmes for producers on effective conservation techniques and the active promotion of private-sector aggregation and seamless inter-state trade.
MacOpiyo pointed out the current reality that Nigeria faces a 10 per cent deficit in overall feed and fodder availability. However, he highlighted that the more pressing and immediate challenge lies in the realm of distribution, with readily available feed often inaccessible in the very regions where livestock populations are most heavily concentrated.
According to MacOpiyo, addressing this logistical bottleneck through targeted investments in infrastructure development and the implementation of supportive policy interventions could drastically reduce the frequency and intensity of farmer-herder conflicts by significantly limiting the imperative for cattle migration in search of adequate grazing land.
Huyam Ahmed Salih of AU-IBAR further underscored the paramount importance of implementing evidence-based policies within the sector, revealing the concerning statistic that a majority of African nations (38 out of 47), have yet to conduct comprehensive and reliable feed and fodder assessments.
She commended Nigeria for its proactive leadership in this crucial area and for its commitment to integrating robust feed data into its national agricultural systems, noting with optimism that over $248 million in investment has already been successfully mobilised within the sector.
On her part, Winnie Lai-Solarin, the director of ruminants and monogastrics development at the Federal Ministry of Livestock Development, further called for the urgent establishment of strategic national feed reserves and the development of resilient hybrid pasture seed systems to ensure a consistent and high-quality supply of essential fodder throughout the year.
According to industry players, the development of a thriving and well-organised feed and fodder sector in Nigeria presents a multi-faceted and compelling opportunity. Economically, it holds the promise of unlocking a billion-dollar market, generating significant employment opportunities across the value chain, from production and processing to transportation and trade.
Environmentally, it is seen as having the capacity to promote more sustainable land management practices, reducing the intense pressure on natural grazing lands that currently fuels conflict.
Socially, it is believed that by ensuring a more reliable and readily accessible supply of feed for livestock, it could substantially reduce the need for disruptive nomadic herding patterns, thereby mitigating the violent clashes over scarce resources and fostering greater harmony between Nigeria’s diverse agricultural and pastoral communities.
As it stands, the advanced digital tools and data-driven insights now at the disposal of the Nigerian government have been indicated to represent a crucial and commendable first step. However, analysts argue that translating this immense potential into tangible and lasting benefits will necessitate sustained political will, strategic and targeted investment, and the effective implementation of enabling policies.
To this end, analysts assert that actively encouraging private sector participation through well-designed incentives, developing the necessary infrastructure for efficient feed production and distribution networks, and empowering local communities with the knowledge and resources to actively engage in fodder cultivation and processing will be absolutely paramount to unlocking this billion-dollar opportunity and fostering a more peaceful and prosperous future for Nigeria.
