Governor Jibrilla Bindow of Adamawa State

Adamawa Government has vaccinated over 20,000 livestock against contagious diseases across the state.

Alhaji Isa Barima, state commissioner for Livestock production, stated this on Sunday at the ongoing pilot workshop on improved and modern feed for cattle in Yola.

The workshop was organised by the Nigerian Incentives Based Risk Sharing Systems For Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) for livestock farmers across the country.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that 50 farmers from Adamawa, Bauchi, Oyo, Imo, Delta and Katsina States as well as the Federal Capital Territory would be part of the pilot project.

Barima said that the vaccination was aimed at protecting livestock from diseases such as black leg, malignant edema and leptospirosis (an infectious disease of humans and of horses, dogs, swine, and other animals).

He said vaccination was also given against Foot and mouth disease, brucellosis (a bacterial disease caused by various Brucella species, which mainly infect cattle, swine, goats, sheep and dogs) and tuberculosis.

“In line with the Federal Government Grazing Reserves programme, the state government had so far vaccinated over 20,000 cattle herds across the state.

“The development is part of government policy to start full implementation of the Programme for the production of healthy beef meat, milk among others to increase wellbeing in the state,” Barima said.

He said the state government had allocated over 15,000 hectares of land to the Federal Government for the full implementation of the grazing reserves programme.

Alhaji Aliyu Abbati, NIRSAL General Manager, said that the cardinal objective of the workshop was to boost the country’s enormous potentials in livestock production.

Abbati, who was represented by his deputy, Dr Faruq Turawa, said that the organization’s mission was to educate small and large livestock farmers in the country on how to boost their businesses.

“The organization is to bring together livestock farmers, especially cattle breeders in the country to harness their abandoned enormous potentials.

“The Programme is designed as Anchor Borrowers Scheme, where livestock farming will be modernized and developed through modern Artificial Insemination Fattening. Milk production is also part of agriculture that needs to be harnessed,” Abbati said.

(NAN)