In this interview with Adefolarin Olamilekan on ADBN’s Market Report, and monitored by BENJAMIN UMUTEME, a Development Economist, Dr. Emeka Okengwu, says livestock is central to food production and economic diversification of Nigeria. Excerpts!
What’s your take on the document?
The livestock development document didn’t just jump into the fray; it has been a long work as it were. Remember there was a committee set up that was headed by Professor Jega to start looking at the document before the ministry was even created. So, it didn’t just jump from the sky, a lot of work had gone into it, a lot of stakeholder engagement was also held. In one word, it’s a good document if well pursued, so that in the long run, it can be able to produce a well-intentioned output for the Nigerian livestock sector.
The federal government has put in a lot of work in a bid to improve the livestock sector especially with this document. Can you help us dissect the document in our food supply chain?
When you talk about livestock, there are two things you are talking about. First, you are talking about protein, which is very critical, and you are also talking about fat and oil which is also very much needed. So, there is no way that you can discountenance livestock in your food systems or food programme. It is not only critical, it is central. It has to do with prestige as it were.
You see yourself as not doing so well if you are not able to see protein or protein sources in your meals. So, it’s a whole lot to everything, like I said, it’s so critical it’s so central to everything; not only to our food system but to economic diversification and empowerment. A lot of value chains can come out of the livestock sector. Is not just food alone, it’s also empowerment, it’s also social cohesion and otherwise as it were. So, it’s important.
How does all this play out, especially in the employment generation?
Let’s take it from the tangent now. Let’s talk about canning. When you are talking about canning, you are talking about your steel industry. Let’s talk about your chain stores, let’s talk about logistics. You need transportation to be able to move whatever it is that you are getting out of your food chain. Let’s talk about your medications. Let’s talk about your feed stock, you will be needing bones, you will be needing blood meals. Let’s not talk about the production of your vaccines. Some of these vaccines are produced using animal fats. Let’s talk about your fashion. Let’s talk about your shoes; let’s talk about your belts; let’s talk about your car seats. Let’s talk about your furniture.
There is so much that you can get; even the little buttons that you have on your shirts. Let’s even talk about your construction. There is something they call cellular light-weight concrete. It’s actually made from biodegradable materials from cow horns. It is actually replacing or can replace steel up to four floors; this comes from the hoofs of cows. Let’s talk about your wool. You remember I have not mentioned meat. So, meat now becomes a little inconsequential when you are looking at these other variables or factors. Not to talk about your can beefs. So, it’s endless, and again, we are creating an ecosystem from one product. We’ve not talked about the bone meal; we’ve not talked about the blood meal.
How can we bring the sub-nationals into this kind of road map?
Instead of making it top-bottom, why don’t we make it bottom-up? If you think the sub-nationals are going to be the problem, then take it to them. I am sure, a lot of sensitisation, a lot of agreement, would have been drawn up now. One or two states, maybe Gombe or Bauchi, have the biggest ranch in Nigeria so far, Yobe hosts the largest market in West Africa. It’s not even in the whole of Africa. In getting the sub-nationals involved, I think it might also be important we understand that the federal government’s wish might not translate into action if it is not driven by the right players or stakeholders. And who will this be? This should be your private sector.
In all these, the government has done policy; it should have been left at that level of policy. Then you can now have policy or programme support instruments that can come by way of hedge funding, by way of subsidised programmes, tax holidays, and all that. In every place where livestock has operated efficiently, you will find out that what the government just brought is the policy, we have people who are livestock farmers, people whose businesses are to be able to control the livestock value chain and they are not government people.
The private sector has often complained about funding and unfriendly business environments. From your understanding of the document, can it guarantee a conducive environment for private businesses that want to invest in the sector?
Nothing, no written document can guarantee safety. What the written document might do is maybe guarantee inflows. But even at that, in guaranteeing those inflows, if there are too high risks, they will be asking you for impossible guarantees. Sometimes to the extent that you might even be doing up to over 100% of guaranteeing those things it simply means that there is little or no belief in what you are doing.
The best guarantees are what they call the cash flow-based guarantees. Where your cash flow expresses, shows your returns both on equity and investments and it shows clearly what your break even points are. And there is no way that considering the value that cattle have it won’t be viable. It’s just for you to be very measured in the market value inputs, the health of those livestock so that they can be competitive internationally and locally-your slaughter systems, your herding systems, your breeding systems.
So, these are the things that a policy document might not guarantee. There has to be a planned programme of action that begins to show you where feeds are coming from, how sustainable that source will be, and where the medication is coming from and how sustainable it will be. And everything that is required at the backend. That way you do not now have a business that will create its own crisis in the search for food which they must have.
They ruin other people’s crops which are their food. Cattle eating somebody’s grass will be cattle that are feeding but that you are eating is now somebody’s crop that you now destroy the person’s livelihood. So, if there is a programme from where we as a country make a deliberate effort to ensure that we have forage, we have food, we have storages and we have proper statistics of where, when, how it is going to be aggregated and distributed, then it is a win-win for us.