By Juliana Agbo, Abuja

The National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) said it has harvested 25,000 litres of urine from over 5000 rabbits that would be used as organic fertiliser to support its young farmers in their various farms at zero cost.

It also said 2,142,000 liters of rabbit urine will be harvested within  a year as it is expected to reproduce about 1,360, 000 rabbits in a year from the already distributed 17, 000 rabbits to farmers, as the programme will be extended to other five States.

The Executive Secretary and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NALDA, Prince Paul Ikonne,  disclosed this in Owerri, Imo State, while unveiling ‘Rabbit Waste Organic Fertilizer’ from four pilot States under the programme.

Analysing the prospect, Ikonne said with a total of five rabbits given to farmers on five per farmers bases, in three months, 85000 will be distributed, while 10 rabbits kits per rabbits per gestation period and 20 rabbits are expected to be recovered from each farmer within the same period amounting to 340,000 rabbits in three months, 680,000 in six months and 1,360,000 in a year.

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Speaking on the quantity of rabbits urine that will be produced during this period, the ES said “357,000 rabbits will produce 535,500 litres of urine fertiliser in three months, while in six months period 714,000 rabbits will produce 1,071,000 litres of urine fertiliser and 1,428,000 rabbits will produce 2,142,000 litres of urine fertiliser which will serve as organic fertiliser to support NALDA young farmer’s in their various farms at zero cost.”

Ikonne further said the Federal Government in its efforts to engage more youths in the agricultural value chain launched rabbit farming in November last year with Imo, Abia, Cross River and Oyo as pilot states for the programme.

He explained that according to the result analysis from the laboratory, the rabbit urine contains Nitrogen: 13.3 g/l; Chloride (Cl-): 5.87 g/l; Sodium (Na+): 3.17 g/l; Potassium (k+): 1.750 g/l; Inorganic sulfur (S): 0.163 g/l; Phosphate (P): 0.95 g/l; pH: 5:6.

He said the program is designed to engage 17,000 young Nigerians in rabbit rearing, but as a result of learning points from the first pilot phase, NALDA has generated a deep insight into the dynamics of rabbit farming.

“It on this backdrop, that the program will be extended to other states and also increase the number of participants in the existing states.

“The rabbit rearing program commenced about three months ago after Mr President flagged off National Young Farmers Scheme (NYFS) in November 2020. The pilot states for the program are Imo, Abia, Oyo and Cross River.

“As of today, NALDA has been able to harvest over 25,000 litres of urine from over 5,000 rabbit which is to serve as organic fertiliser to support NALDA young farmer’s in their various farms at zero cost.

“All the NALDA farmers who do submit their urine to various collection centres are been paid to encourage them on the business viability of rabbit farm business, ‘Rabbit Urine as Organic fertiliser,” he said