‘Local farmers produce 30% of Nigeria’s poultry demand’

• ‘Local farmers produce 30% of Nigeria’s poultry demand’

The Chairman, Poultry Association of Nigeria, Kwara State chapter Mr. Oladapo Robinson, on Wednesday stated that Nigeria’s annual demand for the poultry value chain was over N500bn.

He stated that 165 million birds, 650,000 metric tonnes of eggs and 290,000 metric tonnes of meat were demanded annually.

He, however, said that it was sad that local production was addressing only 30 per cent of the demand, while the rest 70 per cent were foreign sourced.

He spoke during biosecurity training customers’ forum for poultry farmers in Kwara State.

The training was organised by Valentine Chickens in collaboration with Bolaniks Agro-vet Nigeria Enterprise.

Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer/Principal Partner, Bolaniks Agro-vet Nigeria Enterprise, Mr. Bolaji Afolabi; and Hatchery Manager, Valentine Chickens, Mr. David Crouch, have called for the full implementation of the ban on importation of poultry products.

Robinson said although poultry products had been banned from being imported into the country, some imported products were still finding their way into the country.

He, however, said that in the past two years, the Federal Government had been making effort to implement the ban on the importation of poultry products.

He said, “Even locally, our farmers still need to increase their capacity to meet the demand gap created by the ban on imported chicken. We have not been able to do that yet. Currently local production accounts for only 30 per cent of the total chicken consumption in Nigeria. The balance of 70 per cent is the imported chicken.”

Afolabi said a lot could still be done to help poultry farming in Nigeria. He stated that apart from technical expertise, there should be conscious efforts by all tiers of government to address the problems of poultry farmers, especially in the areas of feed or food ingredients.

He said that credit facilities for poultry farmers were important but added that without inputs, credit facilities would not make the desired impact.

Crouch said there were a number of challenges facing poultry farmers.

He stressed the need for information sharing and collaboration among poultry farmers in order to overcome their challenges and be successful in business.