Grazing crisis: ‘Why states should adopt Zamfara template’

Kwagga Dlama Zira Eliphelet is an architect, designer and project manager of the Zamfara Rural Grazing Area (RUGA) project. In this interview with Daily Trust on Sunday, he said the Zamfara model could be used in solving the crisis between herders and farmers across the country. He is of the opinion that the template can be best implemented based on the peculiarity of each state, with the overall interest of creating peace, jobs and economic opportunities.

There is crisis in the livestock sector in Nigeria, especially in the area of animal feeds. Many stakeholders are suggesting that one of the ways forward is to create ranches for herders in order to tame grazing crisis with farmers. As an expert in this area, to what extent do you think this can help?

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The incessant farmers-herders crisis has eaten into the fabric of this country and contributed to the division we are experiencing. As a matter of fact, ranching is where the solution to this problem lies because for every well-meaning Nigerian, RUGA, which stands for rural grazing area, has been with us since 1946, but it has been dormant.

In the 21st century, the best way to float production in the livestock system is to have farms or ranches for full commercial production. Open grazing and travelling kilometres is outdated in every strata of humanity today. So, this is an opportunity for us to harness our potential in agriculture, which we have forgotten.

The RUGA template we should adopt is unique and peculiar. There are states that cannot have RUGA or ranches, but they have the potential to benefit in a very big capacity, in terms of livestock production.

The farmer needs to produce what the herder would use as raw material, just as the cow dung is manure for the farmer. The RUGA should not be forced on all the states, but each state can take advantage of it, based on its own peculiarity. If the far northern states build ranches, I expect the southern or middle belt states that can’t have RUGA to take advantage of it by putting up large scale fodder of pasture production farming, which will sweep most of our teeming youth out of the streets.

This is an opportunity for governors and commissioners of agriculture to look at how we can harness these potentials. RUGA should not be viewed as a programme that would cause division.

When the federal government mooted the idea of the national livestock programme, some states, especially in the South, kicked against it, saying it was a way of taking their lands for herders. As an expert, can you throw more light on how this can be resolved?

The salesmen of the president could not sell the idea properly because, as a matter of fact, the issue of RUGA settlement is not about land grabbing. You can’t go to Adamawa to grab someone’s land, even if they are mixed with Fulani. It does not work like that. You have to look at the peculiarity of each state to decide if a settlement can be established there or not.

So the president and his cabinet should look inward and at the peculiarity of each state. That is why today, despite being the main programme of the president, the issue has not been nipped in the bud. This is because they were doing it as a holistic approach in the country. There are lots of government farms that have been abandoned; this is an opportunity to use them.

Let us come together to renegotiate this project and you will see that people will adopt this roadmap. Let us have a policy that is workable for us all, with sincerity of purpose. There should be a proper dialogue between states that are arable for this project, and this will harmonise the relationships we all share.

There are fears that the traditional Fulani may find it difficult to be confined in ranches, how will that be attended to?It is not confinement. Just as the indigenous people in other parts of the country are repulsive to this because they have not been given a sense of belonging to the project, it is the same with some indigenous Fulani that cannot move because they have intermarried. There are Fulani that are resident. For instance, in Adamawa, there are those who stay in a place and they can be differentiated from those who engage in seasonal movements. So they can also adopt the system of being in a place if the proper orientation is given.

What I am trying to say is that we should look for ways to stop the upward and downward movement. Nobody will dispute the fact that fattening is when you keep cattle in a place. This concept is not to imprison the herder but to provide new opportunities.

Zamfara is noted as one of the states piloting RUGA, and you are a key stakeholder in the project; what is the situation now?

The project is a bargaining chip for peace so that the economy would thrive. When we started work, we were told that before Governor Matawalle came into office, the rate of banditry made the state inaccessible, but he was able to broker peace.

This should not only be applicable to herders. How do we harness and build up our own farming communities? What other essential amenities and infrastructure do we need to give our farming communities? Is it very good rural roads that would bring all those grasses out? Is it good canals that would take water further to where the streams can’t go, or are boreholes at intervals to give good water, primary health care? There are basic things that need to be provided. But it is a right of the citizens and should not be a privilege.

Specifically, what do you have in the Zamfara RUGA project?

The RUGA model encompasses 23 items. We have the road network, which is about 13.673 kilometres. The ranch is in the Ranji Sakida Grazing Reserve in Maradun Local Government Area; and it is 2,218 hectares.

The pilot phase started with about 100 hectares, but due to natural formations, it took about 300 hectares. That is for housing and other structures, but we expect it to take almost the entire place because of pasture production.

There are other reserves meant for similar projects, like Zumi Gidan Jaja with about 36,200 hectares and the Dantsado Kuyanbana forest of about 10,000 hectares.

On the pilot phase, the state government acquired a pivot sprinkler system, which has about 850 meters in diameter and radius of about 475.

Apart from the roads, we have water reticulation, which serves about 27 kilometres. There is a water storage facility, four overhead and four surface tanks, each of which accommodates 250,000 litres, cumulatively giving you 2million litres.

Then we have solar-powered industrial boreholes, with 8 attached to each one. We have 10 hand-operated boreholes, which are already sunk. As at December, the reticulation had gone to about 18 kilometres, out of 27.

We also have health facilities, including a primary health care with a 30-bed capacity and theatres, outdoor patients department, a nursery for delivery, which is attached to the maternity. We are not expecting any case that is more than the capacity of the health care. There is the veterinary clinic, which has the capacity to accommodate about 1,000 herds within its own confines. And it has its own theatre and isolation rooms, including 12 paddocks.

There are markets with open and closed stalls and abattoirs. But in the context of a Fulani man, he does not kill his animal in his environment, so he takes it to a far place to slaughter, so the abattoir is located outside the ranch. The abattoir is going to be in Maradun town.

We have 210 plots for herders, each measuring 2,475 square meters, and are divided into four. Six hundred square meters is given for the living area so that the herder can build his hut the way he wants it. The other three are divided, fenced and demarcated, with each paddock having a gate.

We provided a squat system for them and a soak-away to each house. Out of the 210 allotted plots, there are five bedrooms for the Fulani or Hausa leaders. Three and two bedrooms are for ward heads.

There are religious facilities: an eid ground, a central mosque and outdoor spaces that can accommodate up to 1,000 persons. There is also an Islamiyya attached to the mosque, as well as a school, so that they can have an opportunity of Islamic and western education. There are other spaces left for future development.

What are the economic benefits of the settlement in the future?

We have phases one and two. Phase one is to provide the basic amenities in bringing the herders back into a cluster. The economic benefits are that it will attract investors over the world. It will bring the production of meat, which in turn provides revenue. It will open job opportunities for veterinary doctors, agricultural extension workers, companies that can come in to engage in milk, cheese and manure production, bio gas, bone processing, hide and skin processing, animal feed from the blood, in combination with other ingredients, then pasture production from farmers.