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Kwara State governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq has flagged off the Livestock Productivity and Resilience Support Project (L-PRES), a six-year $500m food security programme supported by the World Bank and the Federal Government.
Both the federal government and World Bank commended the governor for providing quality leadership and platforms for livestock value chain production and commercialisation in the state.
The administration has invested in the development of the livestock sector to maximise its potential, particularly in beef and dairy production, the governor said at the flag off of the project.
Kwara has a comparative advantage in all areas of livestock production, particularly in beef and dairy production. It serves as forms of income and wealth for families to better access financial services. It is a major form of financial instrument to families, especially now that we are talking about financial inclusion, improvement in standard of living, and improving our GDP in the state,” he added.
“This is why our focus has been on developing, upgrading, and transforming the economy in terms of livestock development. This has had positive impacts on smallholder farmers while also reducing farmer-herder conflict in the state.
“We aim to ensure that the smallholder farmers become commercial farmers so that they can respond to demand for quality food from the urban centres, climate change, contribution to global economy and also ensure that families have adequate supply of animal protein and improved livelihood.
“For these reasons, our administration keyed into programmes like the special agro processing zone and livestock productivity and resilience support project that we are flagging off today.