Kano State Agro-pastoral Development Project has said 1.8 million cattle, goats and sheep will be vaccinated in this year’s annual livestock vaccination campaign in the state.

The state Project Coordinator, KSADP, Ibrahim Muhammad, said this at KSADP/SAA media field day exercise in Kano on Monday.

He said that the project was funded by the Islamic Development Bank and the Lives and Livelihood Funds and aims to enhance livestock health and improve livelihoods of herders and livestock breeders.

“The project is determined to upscale the vaccination because livestock health is tied to the herders’ livelihoods and by extension our economy,” the coordinator stated.

According to him, the state agro-pastoral project has embarked on several projects such as upgrading and equipping artificial insemination centres and construction of milk collection centres.

Others are upgrading cattle markets and crop residue utilisation programmes, among others, to improve the livelihood of the herders.

Earlier, the project coordinator, KSADP-SASAKAWA Africa Association Nigeria, Abdulrashid Kofar-Mata, said it was a five-year programme focusing on improving crop production and enhancing livestock productivity in the state.

“The executing agency of the programme is the Kano State Agriculture and Rural Development Authority. The overall objective of KSADP is to contribute to reducing poverty and strengthening food and nutrition security in the state by developing agro pastoral production systems.

“SASAKAWA is a technical partner under the KSADP providing technical support to the government’s extension efforts of enhancing agricultural productivity and competitiveness through increased access to inputs value addition extension services,” he said.

Mr Kofar-Mata disclosed that the media field day was organised to showcase activities of the project implementation in the last one year and measure successes and impact made so far.

He explained that the event enabled the selected media outfits to interact with the beneficiaries on the field to share their experiences.

(NAN)