Don advises FG to support ruminant block research for Fulani herdsmen

By our Correspondent

Dean, School of Agriculture and Industrial Technology, Babcock University, Ogun State Nigeria, Professor Akintunde Akinsoyinu, has advised the Federal Government to support ruminant block research for Fulani herdsmen , so that  the incessant attack allegedly carried out on innocent Nigerians by them would be a thing of past.

Speaking with Agricultural Journalists in his office, Akinsoyinu, said that the ruminant blocks   is a system where the castle would be confounded in a particular location where they would be fed with the food specifically made for them without roaming indiscriminately in major cities

He explained that the ruminant block would make from cassava peels, ground nut cakes, yam peals and wheat offal for production of ruminant’s food.

The don noted that under the last dispensation, he had headed a committee under the Agriculture Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN), which came up with a solution by fabricating blocks for ruminants, that would have addressed the   recent   Fulani herdsmen and farmers massacre  .

In his words, “We had concluded our research but we were at the test running and implementation stage when they stopped funding the project, this would have addressed the issue, just as it is in some other countries of the world.

“N23 million was allocated for the project by the previous administration, but only N5 million was released to us, so we became handicapped and the project was truncated. And for me spending N5 billion to feed these animals annually is better than shedding of blood of Nigeria citizens.”

He further added that the institution has fabricated some equipment to help famers in the value chain for value addition and they fabricated equipment for processing of palm oil from the scratch to the finishing.

He revealed, “We have been able to produce egg with less cholesterol, and it is not been done in any part of the world before, but we pioneered it.

“The government has been running away from the reality, oil will finish one day, but agric will not finish. I am a beneficiary of cocoa in the then Western Region, what happened to our groundnut pyramid? We had better face the reality and address it squarely before the situation goes beyond what we are facing now.

“One of the problems of the recent times is that students are not interested in studying agriculture, that is the faculty where we record the lowest application, they all want to study banking, accounting and other social sciences like economics and so on.”