The Nasarawa State Government has set necessary machinery in motion to ensure that butchers adhere to standard practice in all the abattoirs in the state.
Prof. Otaki Allanana, the Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources, said this on Wednesday in Lafia when the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists( NUJ) paid him a courtesy visit.
According to him, the government is working assiduously to improve facilities at the two abattoirs in the state located at Karu and Lafia.
Allanana said that there were only two abattoirs in the state while he identified the remaining ones as slaughter slabs.
He noted that the abattoirs were under the control of the state government and veterinarians who had been given the mandate to ascertain the health of the animals meant for human consumption before they are slaughtered.
According to him, the government is not too happy with the proliferation of unhealthy slaughter slabs across the state and the way some butchers were handling meat.
“I went round the slaughter slabs in the state and some of them are like tents designed for selling yams as their environments are untidy,” he said.
The commissioner said that the government had received proposals from private investors willing to construct and operate private abattoirs.
He said that the proposals were being considered with a lview to ensuring healthy meat come out from them for human consumption.
The commissioner also expressed optimism the optimism that Nasarawa State has the capacity to feed the rest of the North and beyond with the activities of private sector involved in machinist farming in the state.
He said that the state government would continue to provide enabling environment to boost agricultural activities with a view to ensuring sustained bumper harvest.
Allanana also disclosed that the government would soon build special markets for agricultural products and connect farmers with such markets.
He, therefore, appealed to the members of pen profession to partner the ministry by reporting agricultural-related activities going on in the state to the outside world.
Earlier, Isaac Ukpoju, the Chairman of the Correspondents’ Chapel, said that the visit was to familiarise themselves with the ministry for better reportage of its activities.
The chairman, therefore, appealed to the ministry that journalists be carried along in the distribution of fertilizer and other farm inputs as most of them were also farmers. (NAN)
