By Abdallah el-Kurebe
The government of Sokoto state has signed a contract agreement with an Argentine firm, South American Breeding Technologies, SABT for the establishment of a cattle breeding, milk and beef production project in the state.

In his speech during the signing ceremony, Governor Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko stated that Sokoto as an agrarian state largely relies on its agricultural resources.

He observed that though endowed with numerous resources, one of the major problems faced by the state was the technical know-how to exploit this resource base in other to obtain maximum benefits for the people.

According to Wamakko, the combined livestock and poultry population in the state is put at approximately eight million. “We only need to look at available statistics, which put the combined livestock and poultry population at about eight million,” he said adding, “the remains largely maintained under traditional husbandry practice with a resultant low yield.”

Noting that Sokoto state is the chief producer of livestock in the country, Wamakko lamented that combined efforts with sister states with similar endowments has failed to adequately meet the animal protein needs of the people as recommended by WHO.

“It is in order to address these problems and to put the state on a sound economic footing that we entered into this agreement with SABT.”

While pledging to rehabilitate the Sokoto Diary Plant to full and expanded production to process the milk output, Wamakko stressed that: “We intend to reintroduce the annual procurement and sale of dry season feeds at subsidized rate to the pastoralists as well as provide livestock credit facility to enhance the springing up of more small and medium livestock and poultry farmers in the state.”

The project’s main components include a cattle reproduction centre, which will handle the technological aspects of artificial insemination, embryo transplant and laboratories for research; the agricultural component, which will handle the production of feed while the clusters (existing breeding farms) will form the model operational units.

Earlier, President of South American Breeding Technologies, Horacio Michelini said that his company has exported its services to many countries around the world.

He stressed that by the agreement; SABT will be selling training as well as bring revolutionary change in the area of agriculture, genetic procedure, meat processing and milking machines.

Those who graced the occasion included Nigerian Ambassador to Argentina, Mr. Empere Kanu and his Arhentine counterpart, Mrs. Aaria Susana Pataro.