Correlation Between Open Grazing, Desertification And Starvation In Northern Nigeria: The Truth They Know But Hide
The Oasis Reporters
June 5, 2021
There was so much grandstanding and blame throwing to mostly southern leaders by a section of the north in a symposium on Friday June 4, 2021 which was aired on the Nigerian Television Authority network (NTA), TVC, an Islamic station etc.
The bad guys were as usual, Southern governors, Southern Kaduna people and other Middle Belt leaders. It seemed like the only good guys who were also victims were the Fulani herdsmen that are being oppressed. And to think that those slaying in their fiery speeches were mostly professors, doctors and other members of the northern intelligentsia, was mind boggling!
Let’s examine some truths these persons were desperately hiding, even when they know the truth that their open grazing is killing the north and is set to consume the country if care is not taken.
Northerners knew as long as 20 years ago that the desertification of Northern Nigeria is as a result of open grazing. Wide bodied cows that consume tonnes of grass each day has denuded the north and laid it bare, bereft of vegetation to sustain the environment.
Dr. Tanimu Yakubu, ex-President Goodluck Jonathan’s Economic Adviser was once a Commissioner in Katsina State and discovered that a huge chunk of the State government budget was sinking into the purchase of fertilizer for farmers at subsidized rates.
Still fertilizers refused to do the miracle or expected magic of producing food crops. Yields continued to remain poor. Starvation became the lot of ordinary northerners, hence you have mainly Hausa food beggars in Katsina, as families continue to disintegrate, leading to several fault lines amongst which is criminality being exhibited.
Ordinarily, crop agriculture is a mainstay in northern Nigeria. But open and mindless grazing has killed the top soil in the north. Having succeeded, albeit unknowingly by the majority of the herdsmen, they are now setting their eyes on the forest vegetation in the south. Hence Southern governors are putting a stop to the practice before the over 30 million cows of the herdsmen turn Southern Nigeria into another form of the Sahara desert.
And what are the benefits of the Fulani cows in Nigeria ?
In an an opinion piece this writer shared in The Will online publication (www.thewill.com),
“OPINION: DYING FOR THE COW TO LIVE
By THEWILL_ – May 16, 2016″, I wrote inter alia by way of comparative analysis thus:
The Way Out Of The Impending Anarchy
Before tackling this point, it is pertinent to do a comparative analysis between the economic output of the cow raised in a nomadic setting, vis-a-vis the cows raised in enclosed ranches.
The Fulani Herdsmen own about 30 million cows and about 20 million Nigerians are engaged in that sector, according to sources.
The rate of parturition of the average Fulani cow is once in 3 years. The average milk yield per female cow is 1 litre per day.
Compare this to the South African cow that gives birth every year, producing 45 litres of milk per day, per cow.
Fulani Cow South African Cow
Calfing: in 3 years Once in 1 year
Milk yield: 1 ltr daily 45 ltrs daily
Rearing style : Nomadic Ranching
Taking the analysis further to the Netherlands, where the popular Peak milk brand and other dairy products consumed in Nigeria and many other countries around the world emanate from, the country has a population of just 3. 86 million herds of cattle and engaged only about 261,480 full-time and part time agricultural sector workers , both in animal husbandry and crop agriculture in 2005 .
60% of total agricultural production in the Netherlands is exported. Agriculture accounting for 2.1% of GDP, industry 24.4%, and services 73.5%. The agricultural labor force is just 4% of the population while 74.1% were in services as of 2005.
The crop output in 2003 was valued at almost €10.6 billion, fifth highest in the EU after France, Italy, Spain, and Germany. This figure is more than the GDP of most African countries. Today over $10 billion worth of vegetables are exported to the rest of the world from the Netherlands.
The Netherlands supplies much of the world with milk, cheese and other animal based products yet has no history of farmers /herdsmen internecine conflicts. Milk production in 2005 totaled 10.5 million tons.
With the Fulani herds of cattle, there are no records kept of total milk yield in tons per annum, but certainly no one has ever heard or seen tinned milk from the breed.
It goes to show that the Fulani owning about 30 million cows is not wealth, rather it is uncontrolled trouble for communities that harbor the peripatetic lifestyle of moving their herds of cattle into people’s farms and lands from community to community especially in the south.
The refusal of the Fulani to modernize and abandon their nomadic lifestyle will turn out to be their Achilles heel. Any community that remains static soon goes into irrelevance and oblivion. Like the way forward which Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State in the South East proposed, if his citizens embrace the modern method of ranching cattle, before long the Fulani would find themselves at the bottom rung of a business they dominated for centuries to new and emerging rivals, and that is the Fulani Achilles Heel, especially when their AK47 rifles are balanced out”.
Look at the security situation in Katsina state today. Kidnappings, rape, mindless massacres, displacements have become the order of the day and the political leadership there are in a quandary. All their attempts at solving the security problems have failed. From appeasements to amnesties to the bandits in the bush and cash handouts for ransoms; none has worked.
Suspicions are rife that Dr. Tanimu Yakubu could reveal all that he did because his Hausa people are deeply hurt. They are perhaps the ones mostly dying and begging for food because they can’t grow crops on their vast but denuded lands. Fulanis stay in the bush. We’ve seen a cleric and Fulani leader, waltz into the forests to appeal to the militia to release kidnapped school children.
Fulani herdsmen need to be helped by the intelligentsia to evolve their cow breeds that would have a variegated value chain with fewer numbers. Protein should not be all about beef with its consequences of high cholesterol, not good for Nigeria’s adult population anyway.
Let Southern governors too help its youth to develop the fisheries business and bridge the supply gap. The two pronged development plans can emphasize the need for less cows to balance the environment, reduce friction and give us a peaceful nation that we all can be proud of.
By Greg Abolo
