Governor Aregbesola opens 10,000-capacity cattle ranch in Osun State

Governor Rauf Aregbesola at the weekend launched a 78.4-hectare, 10, 000- capacity cattle ranch aimed at meeting the beef demand of Osun State as well as the entire South-West when fully operational.

Similar but lager ranches would also be established in Ede and Ejigbo.

He specifically launched the Osun Beef Production outfit (O’Beef). At the commissioning of the ranch located at Oloba Farm Settlement in Iwo, he said it was meant to boost agriculture and mass food production and processing.

Meanwhile, Aregbesola has declared that the country would remain poor despite the huge income from crude oil as long as the leaders fail to properly utilise the income to generate employment.

Speaking at the Education Conference of the National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria (NUTGTWN) held in Osogbo, he stated that it was an illusion to claim that the country is rich.

The governor said: “As a government we must be able to produce the food we eat. A government cannot be said to be good if it is incapable of feeding its own people. In Lagos alone, 6,000 cows are slaughtered daily and no state in South-West produces a single one. All these animals come from the North. We intend to target just 10 per cent of the Lagos market.”

For a start, the ranch, which is being managed by a South African expert in conjunction with IITA and Faculty of Agriculture, Obafemi Awolowo University, has 1,500 cattle sourced locally.

According to him, 30 foreign species called the Zambian Boran, would be introduced to the ranch with a view to genetically crossbreeding them with local ones to get a new indigenous specie. When fully in operation, the ranch, which will be run on public private partnership basis, will have modern abattoir that offers services to the people at a lower rate.