The Livestock Productivity and Resilience Support Project (L-PRES) in Kano State has organized a stakeholders engagement workshop to improve livestock production, commercialization, and resilience.
Dr. Salisu M. Inuwa, the State Project Coordinator, explained that the program focuses on the production, processing, and marketing of sheep, goats, cattle, and poultry value chains
Represented by Dr Ahmad Abubakar, the Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist of the project in Kano.
He pointed out that the state government, under the Commissioner of the Ministry of Agriculture, Dr Danjuma Mahmud, has planned to do a lot of activities under the six-year project.
According to Dr Abubakar plans are underway to boost the productivity of livestock through capacity building to the state-level extension officers, Livestock development officers of the Ministry of Agriculture and veterinary, as well as animal health officers.
“The project is also planning to upgrade existing veterinary hospitals and develop new ones,” he explained.
He maintained that the program involved key actors in livestock production including pastoralists, nomadic Fulani, and other sedentary Fulani across the 44 Local Government areas of the state.
“We also have the leaders from the Fulani associations like Miyetti Allah, Gamdakatar Fulani Association.
“We also invited people from the processing side such as Sarkin Yanka, the Chairman of the Butchers Association and others in the meat processing side, among other stakeholders,”
Dr Abubajar stressed that the aim of the meeting was to sensitize the stakeholders on the operation guidelines of the L-PRES project.
He said; “ is like doing a kind of NEEDS assessment to understand where we have problem in livestock sector and what are the areas that we need to intervene. We are doing a button-top approach in terms of the NEED assessment,” Dr Abubakar explained further.
He also disclosed that the state government is planning to establish more poultry processing centers as part of the project goals to improve livestock production, commercialization and resilience.
The project coordinator said under the project, the government would establish live bird units and poultry processing centers, as well as upgrading existing ones at Sabongari, Tarauni and Janguza markets.
“And we are going to rehabilitate most of the livestock market, especially the one in Wudil, Dambata and the other ones across the state.
“We are going to like strategize in trying to map out the stock roots and the grazing reserves that we have in all the 44 LGAs and establish water drinking points across the areas, all under this project,” he explained.
Participants identified challenges faced in livestock sector and hoped that the project would address the problems for the improvement of the sector.
