A business consulting firm, Convention on Business Integrity (CBI), has vaccinated 2,000 cows in Abuja against some key seasonal diseases.
The exercise is aimed at making the animals healthier thereby boosting dairy production.
- Arsenal sweep aside Chelsea to ease pressure on Arteta
- Nigerians must unite to end insecurity —APC governors
The vaccination, which was sponsored in conjunction with Nestle Nigeria PLC and 2scale, a company that specialises in offering support services to agribusiness, was carried out at the herders grazing reserve in Paikon-Kore in Gwagwalada Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The Head of Livestock Management of the company, Ezekiel Bulus Doka, who spoke with Daily Trust at the event, said de-wormers and other supplements were also given to the herders.
He noted that they were capable of boosting the animals’ mental health and stop them from feeding from their wastes.
“We believe that such intervention, if expanded, is capable of saving the country from unnecessary reliance on foreign breeds, in terms of milk production and also boost the economies of the herders,’’ he said.
The field operation lead of Cam Dairy, Mr David Jumba, whose company maintains a long relationship with the herders in daily collection of milk, said the effort, which was facilitated by his company through sensitisation and mobilisation of the herders, would also meet their target of dealing only with healthy cattle.
The Chairman of one of the herders’ cooperative societies, Sulaiman Ahmad, who expressed delight over the gesture, called for similar intervention in the nomadic primary school at the reserve from the FCT authority.
He equally called for the payment of land compensation to some farmers that were still using the same facility despite being declared as grazing reserve for decades.
He said such usage usually generated annual dispute between the farmers and herders.
The cows were vaccinated for three days by veterinary officers in three centres within the facility.
