The Federal Government’s move to reopen the existing grazing reserves aimed at ending the unabated farmers-herdsmen’s clashes across the country is a step that will boost food production and security in Nigeria. TAIWO HASSAN reports
Since the announcement by the Federal Government of its intention to establish grazing reserves in Nigeria, uncertainty has continued to trail the scheme and this has resulted in farmersherdsmen clashes across the country. Consequently, the crisis has brought about adverse economic losses to agriculture.
Basically, the grazing reserves in Nigeria are areas set aside for the use of pastoralists and are intended to be the foci of livestock development. Indeed, the purpose of grazing reserves is the settlement of nomadic pastoralists.
They offer security of tenure as an inducement to sedentarization through the provision of land for grazing and permanent water. But, however, the reality on ground has shown that many States in the country are against the government’s decision to establish grazing reserves in their territories because of the communal clashes, including hatred between the farmers and herdsmen in farm grazing activities.
Concept of grazing reserve
A grazing reserve is a piece of land that government acquires, develops and releases to the pastoral Fulani. The state and local governments have gazetted and obtained grazing land varying from 50 to 100 hectares.
The Federal Government shoulders 70 per cent of the burden of developing the grazing reserves, 20 per cent for state governments, while the left over of 10 per cent is for the local government.
The Hurumi system (farm grazing) is intended to encourage investment in the land and to ensure that the land is conserved. Controlled grazing that limits the number of animals entering a grazing land leads to efficient rangeland management.
Under the Hurumi system, government gives each settler on the reserve a piece of land. Depending on the herd size and the carrying capacity of the land, the settler pays an annual rent to government. In the rainy-season, the reserve opens to the animals and closes in the dryseason when animals must go on sojourn pasture.
Pastoralist must also adjust to the seasonal and spatial tenurial arrangements. During severe shortages of feed, government opens the communal grazing areas to the distressed herds.
Livestock owners must apply to the Project Office for a grazing permit. The pastoralists must also agree to follow the government’s guidelines for stocking rate. The 10 hectares per herding unit is apportioned as follows: four hectares for grazing, two for settlement, two for farming of legumes and two for fallow.
Aims of the grazing reserves
The aims of grazing reserves include getting and protecting pasture-space for the national herds, and removing discord between agronomists and pastoralists living in the same geographic area.
By separating the herders from the cultivators, the government hopes to foster peaceful coexistence between them by making the grazing reserve a zone of no-conflict. Improving land use and herd management, providing social welfare amenities to the Fulani, and increasing national income are pivotal in grazing reserve development in Nigeria.
The government hopes the grazing reserves will become the center of agro-pastoral innovations, a guarantor of land security, a nucleus for nomadic Fulani settlement, a precinct for crop/livestock systems integration, and a place for small-scale rather than large-scale holder-oriented production.
According to agric experts, some of the gains from the grazing reserves include easing seasonal migration, improving the quality of herds, multiplying outlet for bovine product, and enhancing access to extension and social services. The grazing reserve also encourages the uniform deployment of the cattle.
FG’s lands acquisition
In order to buttress its seriousness with the farm grazing scheme, the Federal Government commenced lands acquisition in the already identified states of the federation. Speaking at the 2017 World Food Day in Abuja, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, stated that the government had secured 55,000 hectares of land from 11 states for the development of pasture and paddocks grazing reserve in the country.
The minister said that the government had also procured exotic grass seedlings to enhance paddock fodder package, increase domestic beef and milk output in a sedentary grazing reserve set up.
He said that the ministry had also trained animal skin collectors, butchers, hides and skin inspectors on standard methods of slaughtering to ensure supply of quality hides and skins and at acceptable standards. “Let me inform you that our primary focus in the agricultural sector is to ensure a virile foundation and certified seed regeneration system and establish commodity market corporations,” the minster said.
“It is also to reinforce the National Grazing Reserve Programme, fund extension services at all levels, resuscitate existing agricultural development projects and re-position the existing agro-processing facilities in the country.”
Grazing scheme consolidation
Despite the looming crisis in the farmers-herdsmen clashes amid the inception of grazing reserve, the Federal Government, not deter with the criticism, stated that the programme is the best solution to solving the farmers-herdsmen clashes in the country. Following the encroachment of some grazing reserves, Ogbeh stated that the Federal Government will make available about three million hectares of land for cattle grazing in the country.
According to him, the availability of the lands will stop the unabated farmers-herdsmen clashes across the country “We have to get it sorted out and we are starting work in another week or two – to reopen the old grazing reserves,” he said. “At a time, at the end of the first republic, there were 415 of them, even as far down as the South West and South East.
“Today, they have been encroached upon (but) we still have three million hectares available for cattle grazing reserves that are more than the cattle Nigeria needs.
“The problem is that over the years, we forgot that these herdsmen were going to become a problem later in life and, especially, this new attitude by herdsmen that when they enter your farm, they should be free to eat your crops and you have no right to challenge them. “That is a new phenomenon, which we find extremely disturbing that when they do so, and you complain, they can shoot you.
“That was not so many years ago, which is why we simply have to deal with the matter now. But the final message to Nigerians is that we have no choice but to produce enough food to feed ourselves so that the average family does not spend more than 20 per cent of its earnings buying food. “As it is, people spend about 60 per cent on food. It is too expensive and it is not sustainable.’’
Last line
With the look of things, there is no doubt farm grazing has come to stay in Nigeria based on the findings that grazing land and stock-routes top the list of Fulani’s demands from any government who is seeking the votes of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria.
