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Nigeria Livestock
Reliable statistics on livestock holdings did not
exist, but
careful estimates suggested a total of 10 to 11 million
cattle in
the early 1970s and, after the severe drought, 8.5 million
in the
late 1970s. Although an epidemic of rinderpest killed more
than a
million cattle in 1983, production recovered by the end of
the
1980s. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimated
that in
1987 there were 12.2 million cattle, 13.2 million sheep,
26.0
million goats, 1.3 million pigs, 700,000 donkeys, 250,000
horses,
18,0000 camels found mostly in the Sahel savanna around
Lake
Chad, and 175 million poultry nationally, owned mostly by
villages rather than by commercial operators. The
livestock
subsector accounted for about 2 percent of GDP in the
1980s
Until the 1990s, cattle-raising was limited largely to
the
northern fifth of the country that was free of the tsetse
fly. A
program of tsetse-fly research and eradication was
somewhat
successful during the 1970s and 1980s, but 90 percent of
the
national cattle herd was still found in the northern
states in
1990. About 96 percent of these animals were zebu-type
cattle,
most of which were tended by Fulani pastoralists.
Traditionally,
the Fulani moved their herds during the dry season to
pasture in
the moister Guinea savanna, returning northward when the
rains
began and danger from the tsetse fly increased. During the
1970s
and 1980s, the expansion of cultivated areas and
irrigation
seriously obstructed this migration by cutting off access
to
usual travel routes.
Most of Nigeria's remaining cattle, 3 to 4 percent, are
smaller than the zebu type and less valuable as draft
animals.
However, they possess a resistance to trypanosomiasis that
makes
it possible to raise them in the tsetse-infested humid
forest
zone. The government improved these herds in early 1980 by
importing breeding stock of a particularly
disease-resistant
strain from The Gambia.
By the early 1970s, as the general standard of living
improved, the demand for meat in Nigeria exceeded the
domestic
supply. As a result, 30 to 40 percent of the beef consumed
in
Nigeria was imported from Niger, Chad, and other
neighboring
countries. In the mid-1970s, Nigeria began importing
frozen beef
in response to export restrictions initiated by its
neighbors.
The National Livestock Production Company established
domestic
commercial cattle ranches in the late 1970s, but with poor
results.
Most of Nigeria's sheep and goats are in the north,
where the
Fulani maintained an approximate ratio of 30 percent sheep
and
goats to 70 percent cattle. About 40 percent of northern
nonFulani farming households are estimated to keep sheep and
goats.
Most pigs are raised in the south, where the Muslim
proscription
against eating pork is not a significant factor.
Almost all rural households raise poultry as a
subsistence
meat. Chickens are predominantly of indigenous origin, and
there
is some crossbreeding with foreign stock. Egg production
is low.
Private commercial poultry operations increased rapidly
during
the 1970s and 1980s near urban areas, providing a growing
source
of eggs for the cities. But commercial operations remained
largely dependent on corn and other feeds imported from
the
United States.
Data as of June 1991
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