Alhaji Isa Mafindi, a delegate representing the North East at the National Conference, said on Monday that meat production could fetch Nigeria N3 trillion annually.
Mafindi, who made the disclosure while contributing to the debate on President Goodluck Jonathan’s speech at the inauguration of the conference, said there was no basis for poverty in the country.
He regretted that agriculture was not given its rightful place in the economy and urged farmers and governments to run agriculture like a business.
“Abattoir or cattle meat production can give Nigeria nothing less than N3 trillion a year,” he said.
The delegate, who is a livestock farmer, said Nigerian farmers were not making use of their by-products, which could fetch millions of dollars.
Mafindi said: “Farmers producing maize, guinea-corn, palm-kernel or cotton have the products and their by-products.
“They only take the products home and leave the by-products in the farms.
“Why can’t we turn the by-products into a business?
“Entrepreneurs can buy the by-products and turn them into animal feed.
“With these things put together, a cow, which I know best, can give you a yield of three kilogramme of milk per day.
“In Nigeria, we have nothing less than 50 million cows.”
Mafindi, however, regretted the unhygienic conditions under which meat was being prepared for consumption.
He said: “We have the worst meat preparation in the world.
“Our animals are slaughtered in the worst abattoirs, carried by human beings on their bodies, some in open market, flies infested.
“Eighty per cent of our tuberculosis-infected patients got them from cow meat.
“We should change this.”
Meat production can fetch Nigeria N3t annually – Delegate
