Oyo Pilots Modern Ranching at Fasola Hub, but Zonal Livestock Village Rollout Remains Unfinished

As the first term concluded in May 2023, the Fasola Agribusiness Industrial Hub stood as the primary evidence of progress. The facility had transitioned from a moribund state to an "advanced stage" of development, hosting private-sector partners like FrieslandCampina WAMCO, which committed to establishing a dairy value chain. 

Reports from late 2022 highlighted the construction of livestock-specific infrastructure at Fasola, including grazing fields and plans for meat processing facilities. Additionally, the Oyo State-IITA Youth Agribusiness Incubation Park Centre in Aawe was resuscitated, featuring goat and sheep pens (100-capacity each) and poultry pens (2,000-capacity) as a training model for young "agropreneurs."

Earlier in 2021, the administration focused on the legal and institutional framework by enacting the Oyo State Agribusiness Development Agency (OYSADA) Law. This agency became the vehicle for coordinating livestock investments. During this period, the government successfully signed Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with international livestock firms to manage components of the proposed villages. 

However, construction at the Eruwa and Akufo hubs, which were also intended to host livestock clusters, faced significant bureaucratic and logistical delays, with work only intensifying in the final year of the term.

The journey began in late 2019 and early 2020 with the passage of the Oyo State Open Rearing and Grazing Regulation Law. To support the implementation of this law, the government promised to provide alternative "livestock villages" to house herders and their animals. 

While the vision was integrated into the broader "Agribusiness Hub" master plan, the actual physical establishment of these villages across multiple zones did not meet the full scale envisioned in the 2019 roadmap. Consequently, by the May 2023 handover, the state had successfully piloted the model at Fasola but had yet to replicate it across the other seven planned locations.