Nigeria, others to benefit from FOA 32 years livestock project

Nigeria has joined five other African countries to benefit from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nation’s Africa Sustainable Livestock (ASL 2050) project.

The project, which will be funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), was built on the evidence that demand for animal sourced food will grow rapidly due to increased human population and the resultant rise in consumer purchasing power and urbanisation.

The project would be implemented under the umbrella of FAO “Emerging Pandemic Threat” programme in six African countries.

They are selected on the basis of an anticipated growth in the livestock sector in the next three decades. The countries are Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda.

Suffyan Koroma, the FAO country representative in Nigeria, commenting on the project in Abuja, said knowledge sharing among livestock, health and environment stakeholders would enable easy identification of investment opportunities and threats associated with the long-term development of the sector.

Sani Adeniyi, a deputy director from the Ministry of Health, highlighted the importance of having a sustainable livestock subsector in order to check the risk of contracting zoonotic diseases.

FAO’s activities in Somalia’s livestock sector are all geared towards boosting the livestock sector at different levels.