The Federal Government has declared that the open grazing system for cattle and other animal rearing is outdated and no longer practised in many countries, urging Nigerians to embrace ranching for the development of the nation’s economy.

Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, stated this at the 2024 Blueprint Newspapers Public Lecture, Impact Series, and Awards, on Tuesday in Abuja.

Represented by the event’s Chairman and Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), George Akume, Alake said that adopting ranching could significantly reduce the ongoing farmer-herder conflicts in the country.

“The way we practice livestock trade in this country has dragged our economy backwards. It has introduced a lot of tension in our politics and has given rise to farmer-herder clashes unnecessarily because we are not practising livestock the way it should be done in modern times,” he said.

The minister insisted that Nigeria needs to grow with the times and adapt to modern means of livestock farming for global competitiveness in export income generation.

He said, “I cannot believe that any sane country in this day and age will be revelling in grazing indiscriminately. It’s no longer done in the modern world. There’s what you call ranching. Ranching is the way to go. That is what every developed society is doing. It not only reduces tension and the aggravation between farmers and herders, it also expands the value chain of the economy and contributes more significantly to Nigeria’s GDP.

“I’m sure Professor Jega (coordinator of the Presidential Livestock Reform) knows all of this and he’s going to put all the arsenal at his disposal to bear on this livestock ministry and make it function efficiently and in a manner that will be beneficial to everyone of us. I am very confident that at the end of the day, our livestock potential will become higher and more than even the oil industry when it’s done properly.”

Alake also decried the current state of the media, saying, “In the last several years, I have come to be very, very disappointed in the development that we have witnessed in the media space of Nigeria.”

He went on to criticise the rise of unchecked social media, stating, “What has given rise to that is the emergence of an uncontrolled social media, access to social media by everyone.

Everybody has access to social media. And so everybody has become an expert on every subject, regardless of the mental consequences and capacity of the abilities of such an individual, and that’s what led to my disappointment.”