By Retson Tedheke

One of the biggest challenges of discussing solutions to the Nigeria national question as it relates to agriculture particularly with animal husbandry is that those with no idea or only sentimental ideal of how the problem of herdsmen can be solved are the most vocal.

There are no silver bullets to solving the continuing farmers-herders challenge that has now morphed into armed robbery, banditry, kidnappings and violent communal clashes without looking at solving foundational challenges. NFGCS Farm Estate developed a model that will work short term and create the platform for medium to long term stability.

Firstly, believing that herders can ranch their cattle and make money without open grazing in Nigeria is ignorance. Ranching globally is heavily subsidized. The herders in Nigeria are the most ignored when it comes to government support. Almost every category of farmers in Nigeria has one form of government support or the other compared to cattle herders.

Comparatively, the herders are not educated enough to be individually organized and their organized structures are not broad enough to reach them as fast and quickly as it should be. So, what the Buhari-led Government is implementing in the National Livestock Transformation Plan, NLTP, manual is the golden key which we are allowing sentiments to kill.

A hybrid of open grazing and ranching, 100 per cent financed by the Governments at all levels is the real deal capable of sustainable solution. Please, do not ignorantly tell me that cattle herders are not farmers and stop with the Fulani domination insanity as President Buhari has been here since 2015, and none of your fears have materialized.

Meanwhile, the challenges of herders and farmers predate most of our parents.

In a hybrid ranch, Local Governments and States provide land anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 hectares. States speed up the development of these land to include farm settlements just like NFGCS Farms Estate has done with processing plants, residential estates, internal security, rural medical clinics for both man and animal, sport and entertainment facilities, long term crop/tree plantations and weekly hydroponic production facilities to feed minimum of 10,000 cattle daily in those estates.

Governments with practicing consultants like the Nigeria Farmers Group and Cooperative (NFGCS), will then go on a Massively Fast developmental process that does not Require Too Much Investment of Expensive Machineries but Basic Infrastructure. You need basic laterite roads to these farm industrial parks, and you need mini dams for all year-round water supplies including rural electricity, the community buy-in by using those parks as their major sources of livelihood.

From creating employment to battling insecurities, from creating market opportunities to providing vocational educational opportunities, from creating communal connections to building inter communal trust, from processing to supporting food security and value added export opportunities, ranching has the potentials to create potentially massive revenue that can surpass crude oil if we are ready to make things happen.

I am an incurably optimist and the battles have been monumental which would have led to almost given up on what we are doing in Ga’ate, Kokona Local Government Area, Nasarawa State. The private sector cannot do it alone. The private commercial farms cannot create opportunities, seek private funding for those opportunities, provide road, electricity and dam infrastructure, security, local structures and community involvement like NFGCS is currently doing and still survive for tomorrow. That is an impossibly tall order.

We as a people have to stop demonizing our own. The America Cowboy industry is not different from the Fulani cattle industry. While the Americans have created a multibillion Dollar industry from the cowboy in fashion, music, movies, culture etc, the Nigeria Fulani herder is demonized, ignored, rejected and stereotyped. We no fit well like that!

The Netherland generates an average of USD100 billion annually from Agriculture. Australia is doing about USD31 billion annually from livestock as of 2021, and Brazil is doing about USD10 billion annually from beef, sorry cow meat.

How much did Nigeria generate from crude oil in 2015 to 2019 under President Muhammadu Buhari 1.0? About 100billion USD.

We cannot have 84 million arable hectares of farmland, an average youth population of about 19 years and over 200 million mouths to feed and still not take agriculture seriously.

Let me stop talking or preaching. I have been saying this for years. Now, without help from anywhere but investors who are burdened by our challenges from 2020, and a community of about 300 staff plus, communities that believe, and we have been able to develop a model available for anyone serious about the problem to visit and learn.

You can visit the NFGCS Farm Center in Gaate, Kokona LGA, Nasarawa State in Nigeria, today!!!

It is not a Farm, it is a home. Missing one thing one only, a religious house, and we will never have a religious house in the farm settlement, do your business with your god privately. Every other thing is present.

Seeing is believing, we may be struggling, but we are building a model that every governor need to replicate nationwide and in every local government. This is capable of 2million jobs annually and adding over three per cent to our GDP before 2030.

Our failure as Nigerians is our fault as Nigerians. No one will build Nigeria if not Nigerians. There will be years we battle for a tomorrow that can be greater than today. I have been called names, I have been ridiculed, I have had to battle with the support of a few. I have had to put everything on the line like my late dad, Professor Moses EU Tedheke, did to achieve his professorship in his 70s.

WE die here or we die here for Nigeria matter. THINKNIGERIAFIRST! VOTEASIWAJUSHETTIMA!!

Retson A Tedheke, Sarkin Yakin Ga’ate, is the Current Secretary of the Agro Commodities Directorate, wrote this piece on January 22nd, 2021. He is the Convener, Asiwaju Farmers Forum and the Managing Partner, NFGCS Farm Estate. AGBAOVOLUTION!