Grass Growing: Ministry To Collaborate With Surveyor-General’s Office

The Minister of Agri
culture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh has said that the ministry would collaborate with the Surveyor General’s Office in its grass growing programme.
In a release obtained by The Tide in Port Harcourt, recently, the minister was quoted to have said that this collaboration was geared towards efforts in curbing the incessant crises between farmers and cattle rearers in some parts of the country.
The minister in a meeting he held with the Surveyor-General of the Federation, Surv. Ebisintei Awudu, in Abuja stated that time had come for Nigeria to start thinking and planning on how to feed her population that is projected to reach 500 million by the year 2050.
He explained that with the problem associated with the old grazing reserves it had become imperative for lands to be mapped out for the growing of grass for wandering cattle.
Ogbe said grasses would be grown all over the country, while abattoirs would be built so that Nigerians would have enough grass to feed the cattle as well as produce enough milk and meat to feed the growing population.
“If Israel can grow grass in the desert, Nigeria can do it,” he said.
Ogbe said research had shown that Nigeria’s grass is very rich, basing his judgement  on the grasses taken from Nigeria to Brazil 16 years ago.
He solicited the support of state governments in making the programme achievable by providing 5000 hectares of  land each for the programme.
While thanking the Kano State government for providing five sites for grass growing, he also called on the office of the Surveyor-General in identifying areas where the programme could be located with  zero conflicts.
Responding to the request of the minister the Surveyor-General said his office had the mandate to carry out mapping of the entire Nigerian  landscape and promised to get all the data concerning the existing razing sites and routes to enable them know where the programme could be sited.

L-R: Chairman, Board of Trustees, National Agricultural Foundation of Nigeria (nafn), Dr Abdullahi Adamu, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh and the representative of the chairman of the occasion, Alhaji Adamu Bello, at the national workshop on a New Agricultural Policy for Nigeria in Abuja, yesterday.