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Sylvanus Viashima, Jalingo
The Ardo Yahaya Global Ventures (AYGV), an NGO based in Taraba State, in collaboration with the Alliance for Sustainable Livestock has flagged off a massive vaccination campaign for livestock across the Sixteen local government areas of the state.
The CEO of AYGV Hajiya Aisha Bashir Ardo who launched the campaign in Jalingo on Thursday said that the aim is to enlighten pastoralist on the need for them to vaccinate their birds and other livestock against New Castle Disease for local chickens (NDI2) & Pest De Petit De Ruminant (PPR) for small ruminants.
She maintained that the organization has already trained over Four Thousand women and youth on how to grow local birds in commercial quantities in their homes using the best practices as a way of boosting their means of livelihoods.
Ardo said the organization has also trained over Twenty livestock extension agents that will be carrying out the vaccination across the State based on demand from farmers.
“Today’s program has drawn participants comprising basically not only women and youths, but also a few men across the State to enlighten them on the need for them to vaccinate their birds, especially the local birds against New Castle Disease for local chickens (NDI2) & Pest De Petit De Ruminant (PPR) for small ruminants especially now that the hamartan season has set in, because this is when the animals are most vulnerable.
“We had earlier set out to train Two Thousand women but have doubled our target and have trained over Four Thousand. Now that we have trained them, we called them to enlighten them on the need for them to vaccinate their livestock.
“We are covering the state through the over Twenty extension agents that we have trained and are going to train even more. This is supposed to be a government responsibility but we understand the pressure on the government and that is why we have taken up this responsibility upon ourselves” she said.
Dr Nathan Francis, a Deputy Director at the State Ministry of Agriculture who attended the program stated that the campaign was a welcome development and urged the pastoralists to take advantage of the opportunity.
“This is a timely intervention and a relief since government attention is highly diverted and there is a vacuum in this regards. Moreso, this is when we usually have issues with the onset of the season so this campaign is a wonderful development. As a Ministry, we are contemplating a mobile veterinary clinic so that we can reach out to many and catch up with our mobile livestock farmers. However, this is still at the initial stages and could take years to manifest and so it is such a relief that someone out there is working so hard to fill the vacuum”.
Similarly, Mr Nasir Mohammed from SMEDAN describes the development as “a wonderful program that has created job opportunities for the youth and this awareness campaign is so apt as it affords the people the information they need to protect against livestock pandemics and other disease outbreak”.
