The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) may provide N11 billion to Greenlands Integrated Agribusinesses Group, an agricultural firm that approached the apex financial institution, for a cattle farming project.
Ayobami Aremu, the convener of the proposed alliance in the cattle value chain in Nigeria, announced this proposal at the official signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the National Association of Cattle Dealers (NACDPAMN), Processors and Marketers of Nigeria, and the Comprehensive Agric Limited, in a deal put together by Greenlands Agribusinesses Limited.
According to Aremu, the deal is being financed by CBN through Sun Trust Bank Nigeria Limited.
Aremu revealed that the deal which is currently in the works is part of the reasons he founded Greenlands following his return to Nigeria from the United Kingdom (UK).
“What propelled my return was to ensure that what we see done over there is replicated here. It’s in an advanced state. The feedlot has been set up in Kogi and Niger; cattle rearers are already supplying cattle to him.
“They are going to be doing 1,000 cattle heads per week and then later move to forty thousand in the future.
“Nobody seems to understand it and it’s not rocket science. They’re just animals that need to be fed, slaughtered, and sold, that’s all. We have to aggregate all the challenges, and problems and look at what singular thing can bring all of this together”, he explained.
The Greelands boss added that the feed lots and fattening houses are currently located and established in Kogi and Niger states.
On his part, Dr. Detoun Abbi – Olaniyan, the representative of Sun Trust Bank at the event, said the high demand for cattle meats and other products from the animal, makes the project convincing.
“The reason is not far-fetched — there is demand. There’s a demand to eat healthy meat, not just meat. There’s demand for other value chains in cattle.
“We’re going back to the field to do an enumeration of each cattle reared, how many cattle they have, how many cattle we need to take off with, and then we’ll now begin to put numbers.
“What usually happens is that you’ll put numbers, go to the field, and then find out it’s not working and the project becomes stagnant. But in this case, we’re taking it one step at a time to get to that place where if we put a figure of, say, N10bn to it, it’ll be more than enough”, he added.
