The Federal Government has expressed its commitment to achieving efficient livestock management, to drive social and economic development with the introduction of forgery-proof ear tags and cattle passports.

This will be combined with digital technology to identify and trace livestock across Nigeria.

Speaking during a stakeholders sentisation and implementation of National Animal Identification and Traceability System (NAITS) meeting held in Edo State, Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Stephen Idehenre, said Governor Godwin Obaseki’s administration keyed into the scheme through NAITS, a scheme under the Federal Ministry of Agriculture to develop partnership that would check herdsmen-farmers clashes and other vices.

Represented by the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Dr. Peter Osagie, the commissioner said the scheme “will help end incessant clashes and dignify our livestock system, boost our productivity and acceptance outside the shores of the country.”

Earlier, Group Company Secretary and Legal Adviser of Mega Corp Nigeria Limited and Gamla Group, Elonna Ezulu, said the scheme would reform the sector in line with global practices.

He said: “For a long time, Nigeria has been inundated with incidents of clashes between herders and agriculturists and the farmers and also, the issue of stealing of cow, this is mostly because there is no data, no means of identification.

“People steal other people’s cow, sell in the markets and are slaughtered and the cases close.  And in the global village we are in today, a lot of issues, borders are no longer a limit to inter relationship between nations.

The Chief Operating Officer of ranch ID, which is the NAITS operations management centre, Uchenna Ononye in a practical demonstration took the stakeholders on the merits of the scheme and the processing for registering and tagging of the animals.

Ononye said the National Animal Identification and Traceability System (NAITS), would help to address security issues plaguing the livestock sector such as cattle rustling, the herders/pastoralist conflict among others.