From: Magnus Eze, Abuja
Ahead of the National Conference on Transformation of the Livestock, holding in Abuja, from Tuesday, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, has raised the alarm that Nigeria might, in the near future, suffer scarcity of livestock because of the quantum of cows consumed daily without commensurate calving.
According to the minister, “The way we are consuming cows, slaughtering them is quite alarming. Lagos alone consumes 6,000 cows a day, that’s the figure at abattoirs, not figure from birthday parties and burial ceremonies and so on. Imagine what Port Harcourt consumes; or Umuahia, Abuja, Kano, Kaduna and Maiduguri. If you add it up, we may be eating up to 80,000 to 90,000 cows a day and we are not calving as many.
“Which means a day will come, if the West Africans don’t come into Nigeria with their cows, we may find out we have no cattle. So, that’s an economic danger that faces us.”