Assessment of Crop Farmers’ and Pastoralists’ Perceptions on the Establishment of Cattle Ranches in Niger State, Nigeria

Abstract

The Nigeria government have tried in many ways, initiated lots of policy and programmes which is aimed at restoring the country’s agricultural sector to its pride. Despite the efforts to promote positive perception and adoption of innovative technologies (IT) by the Government and international development projects, the adoption rate among farmers has always been low in Nigeria. In continuation, recently the federal government of Nigeria introduced the Rural Grazing Areas (RUGA Settlement).The idea was an initiative of the National Economic Council (NEC) presented under the National Livestock Transformation Plan .The essence of the initiatives to abolish the age-long crop farmers and pastoralists’ crisis and to massively develop the livestock industry and seek to promote ranching as the way forward for cattle rearing in the country. According Alh. Mohammadu Umar, the Permanent Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development,made it known to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on 25th of June 2019 that nomadic livestock production in Nigeria is facing major challenges and is at crossroads due to declining availability of pasture, overgrazing, and expanding fatal conflicts between crop farmers’ and pastoralists’.