EU 2000 cows for Nigeria youth

The European Union Trust Fund is presently carrying out its plan to support unemployed conflict-affected Borno State, Nigeria youths with 2000 cows for income generation.

To this end, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, which is implementing the plan, recently launched a massive livestock restocking campaign targeting vulnerable youth and women in the state. 

As of May 2019, FAO has distributed a bull each to 450 youth in Jere, Konduga, Mafa and Dikwa Local Government Areas out of the 2000 bulls to be distributed to Borno youth by 2020.

“There was no one in Dikwa LGA who did not know Kaka Ali,” said Ali, a 34-year-old who started trading household commodities when he was 17. When his shops were burnt down by insurgents in 2014, he escaped with his family to Maiduguri. Since returning to Dikwa in 2017, he has depended on the meagre income from construction work. In May, he was given a bull under the EUTF programme for fattening. “This bull is now my only hope of restarting my business,” said the father of eight.

Ali and other beneficiaries will also be supported with cash to meet their daily needs while they fatten the animals, disincentivizing their premature sales. It’s envisaged that after six months of fattening, beneficiaries can earn between N150,000 and 200,000 ($420-550) from the sale of each bull. Earnings can be re-invested into another cycle of bull fattening or for strategic investments in petty trading, small shops, etc.

The livestock restocking campaign is part of an expansive agricultural support programme, designed to assist 100,000 vulnerable farming households between 2018 and 2020 in Borno State.

“Youth employment is an antidote to radicalization and is crucial to sustaining peace in volatile regions such as northeastern Nigeria. Through these bulls and other livestock, the livestock value chain in the state, which has been affected by the conflict, can be restored and youth will be at the helm of this restoration,” Suffyan Koroma, FAO Representative in Nigeria, said.