Buhari plans to use Government money to import grass from Brazil for his ranch and other privately-owned cows

Buhari plans to use Government money to import grass from Brazil for his ranch and other privately-owned cows

The Senate Committee on Agriculture has thrown its weight behind the proposed plan of General Muhammadu Buhari’s junta to use Nigerian government's scarce revenue to import grasses from Brazil  for grazing of privately-owned cows. Buhari has a ranch with about one hundred and fifty cows and would be one of the beneficiaries of the imported grass.

Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, Senator Abdullahi Adamu on Sunday, May 8 2016 said the move to support the plan of the current government became imperative as the importation of grazing pastures for cattle at designated places across the country will bring an end to the lingering crises between herdsmen and their host communities, The Tent reports.

Adamu, however, berated some professors of agriculture for criticising the move by the Federal Government.

He criticised the inability of the professors to proffer solutions to the problem of grazing over the years, adding that they lacked any moral right to criticise the government’s move.

The Committee Chairman maintained that importing grazing grasses and making them available to “cattle rearers would put a stop to movement of cattle from one place to another and also end the feud between herdsmen and farmers.”

He said, “In the United States, pastures and water were provided to grow nutritious grasses for cattle’s sustenance.

“The government must face the reality of the moment by taking some painful decisions to end the herdsmen and farmers’ clashes. There are no easy fixes to the problem.”

It could be recalled that the Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh, had recently revealed that the Federal Government was making plans to import grass from Brazil in a bid to put a stop to the consistent crises between farmers and herdsmen.

Ogbeh had claimed that President Muhammadu Buhari was putting up grazing fields for herdsmen across the country where the imported grasses would be kept.