Don urges FG to conduct animal census

Prof. Olajide Babayemi of the Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ibadan, has urged the Federal Government to conduct a census to ascertain the total number of animals in the country.

Babayemi, who made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Wednesday, said that the census would help in policy formation on animals.

According to him, there is no record of the total number of animals living in the country.

He said that President Bola Tinubu should concentrate on agriculture to improve food production, saying there are crops, animals, and other components that help agriculture.

“When we talk about food security, we are talking about agriculture; our new president should face agriculture squarely to enhance production in the sector.

“The president should focus on carrying out a survey to know the number of animals that we have in Nigeria. Animal censuses are as good as human censuses too. We don’t have the data; what we have is an assumption,’’ he said.

The don queried the 12 million cattle figure and 40 million goats quoted in Nigeria, saying, Who told you that?.

“For example, if you have 24 million cattle in Nigeria, divide it by the number of people that you have; that will give you an idea of what is on the table or on the ground.

“When last did we do an animal census? No one can say. I have never seen how it is done. Since I have been born, it has never been done,” he said.

Babayemi said that the Federal Government should conduct the census as done in other countries where record-keeping plays a major role in planning.

He said that nobody could answer the question of the total number of animals in the country or whether enough are being produced due to lack of data.

He said, “In other places, they know the number of animals they have in their country at any point in time. If an animal has delivered today, there is a record that a new baby in the animal kingdom has been born.

“But in Nigeria, we don’t have any record, she said, adding that the government should discourage the dependence on foreign supplies of animals from neighboring countries.”

According to him, some of the animals consumed in Nigeria come from Niger, Mali, Cameroon, and other neighboring countries.

He said that though there are other sources of protein like fish, chicken, and others, all over the world, people depend on cattle because it could serve the population as much as possible.

He added that Nigeria should not continue to depend on neighboring countries for cattle and urged the president to focus mainly on agriculture.