FG earmarks N940million for grazing reserves

There are indications that the Federal Government has set aside N940million to be spent on grazing reserves as a way of ending herdsmen attacks on farmers and residents of their host communities. The Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, Archbishop Adewale Martins; and a former General Secretary of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, Archbishop Joseph Sunday, are among clergymen who have opposed the proposal to establish grazing reserves across the nation. They said rather than establish grazing reserves, the Federal Government should build cattle ranches in states where cattle rearing is the major occupation. Meanwhile the details of the 2016 budget made public by the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo-Idoma, on Thursday,indicates that the development of strategic grazing reserves is one of government’s priority projects for the year under agriculture. According to the budget details, the government will spend N940million on the project in 2016.