NALDA establishes animal husbandry farm in Sokoto

The National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) has established an animal husbandry farm with cow milking parlour on 100 hectares in Sokoto State.

This is contained in a statement by the Executive Secretary of NALDA, Prince Paul Ikonne on Monday in Abuja.

Ikonne said that NALDA had just finished inspecting the facility.

According to Ikonne, the authority is developing a modern animal husbandry farm that will sustain itself and reduce movement of cows within the area.

He explained that the establishment of the modern animal husbandry farm was in line with President Muhammad Buhari’s directive and NALDA’s mandate.

He added that NALDA was committed to achieving food security and development, and gave assurance that the farm would generate employment and produce hygienic milk and cow fattening for meat.

The executive secretary said the farm would train and encourage young farmers to go into animal husbandry farming and animal food formulation.

He said that the farm was located at Dabagin-lafia, opposite the Usman Danfodio University farm, while the poultry feed mill was situated in Dayin village along the road to Doba in Sokoto state.

He said: “NALDA is into partnership with Prime Ranch Ltd which donated the 100 hectares where we are establishing the animal husbandry farm and will cultivate maize and millet on 30 hectares.

“The establishment of the nappier grass field is to ensure feed production for the cows as that will eliminate the roaming around of the animals in search of feed, thereby curtailing farmer/herder clash.

“The milking parlour will serve both the cows in the farm and other animal husbandry farmers who would want their cows milked in a hygienic way.

“Prime Ranch will manage the farm on completion based on their wealth of experience in animal husbandry.

“This type of partnership is sustainable, productive and should be encouraged in order for us to achieve food security and development.”

Ikonne also disclosed that the poultry feed mill with 62,000 poultry capacity, would be managed by Prime Ranch, and would be used for feed production for small farmers across the zone and parts of the country.

He said job opportunities would also be created in the farm, adding “the employment chain will not be anything less than 400, consisting of workers who will be directly involved in these activities.”