The Federal Government has selected grazing reserves to be remodelled into ranches in seven northern states.
The states span three geopolitical zones.
The National Commission for Nomadic Education Executive secretary, Bashir Usman, disclosed this at a three-day capacity development workshop training on Re-modeling of Selected Reserves into Ranches for Nomadic Education extension Agents held in Kaduna.
Represented by Director Social Mobilisation and Women Development Alhaji Mohammed Daniya El’Nafaty said the existing grazing reserves have already been carved out, demarcated and gazetted, adding that there are 416 Grazing Reserves in the country spread across the Six Geo-Political Zones of the country with a total of 3.4 million hectares of land out of which 141 are gazetted while 275 are yet to be gazetted.
“The selected grazing reserves identified for this important exercise of remodeling are located in Adamawa, Taraba, Plateau, Nasarawa, Benue, Kaduna, and Zamfara that are categorised as frontline states,” he said.
“The main idea of having ranches is to provide state of the art grazing resources for livestock pastoralists in the country with a view to curtailing the unending farmer-pastoralists conflicts that are posing serious threat to peace and security,” he said.
The Executive secretary further added that the Commission has established 17 Model Nomadic Education Centres in gazetted grazing reserves and will work closely with the Coordinating Office of the National Livestock Transformation Plan.
He lamented that the herder, farmers conflicts have remained unabated and have seriously impacted negatively on the lives and livelihoods of the pastoralist and farmers including the Schools and other infrastructure put in place by the Commission and other stakeholders in nomadic communities.
