By Femi Adi/Kaduna
Kaduna State government, on Wednesday, said it had concluded plans to take selected butchers across the 23 local government areas of the state to visit Saudi Arabia and Turkey on tour of modern abattoir facilities.
The essence of the tour, according to the state government, is to expose the butchers to best international abattoir practice of killing animals for consumption.
The Commissioner of Agriculture, Manzo Daniel Maigari who disclosed this during an interactive forum with journalists at Nigerian Union of Journalists Secretariat, NUJ, Kaduna today said the abattoir practice in the state and Nigeria is an embarrassment. He also described as unfortunate a situation where meat produced in the state and country at large cannot be sold or consumed outside Nigeria because the abattoir practices are substandard.
According to him, it was for this reason that the government is investing resources on some butchers in the state to travel to Saudi Arabia and Turkey to understudy the way animals are killed using modern machines in an Islamic states.
“We chose Saudi Arabia and Turkey for the tour to avoid possible resistance from the butchers, some Muslims and clerics if the government eventually procures modern abattoir machines for killing animals for consumption and export.” He stated.
While explaining the plans of the state government to build ultra modern abattoirs for meat production, consumption and export in major cities of the state, Maigari guaranteed Kaduna butchers of support to ensure that the meat industry in the state can compete favourably with other countries in the world.
Fielding questions on the comatose Kachia ginger industry in the state, the Commissioner for Agriculture revealed that the state government has no plan to revive the over 20- year comatose industry.
He however hinted: “After taking a study tour of facilities, we discovered it is outdated and because it has been proved that government is not good at business, we have decided to sell it off instead of reviving it”