The nation’s poultry industry is now worth N3trillion even as it has been able to contribute to the local domestication of investments in the country.
Poultry farmers under the auspices of the Poultry Farmers Association of Nigeria (PAN) said this in a statement issued in Abuja, noting that, the sector ought to be given proper recognition by the government at all levels for its contribution to job creation.
The national president, PAN, Sunday Onallo-Akpa, said the poultry industry has been a major employer of labour and a great source of financial empowerment and livelihood for many families, especially, women and youths, adding that, “the industry is completely private sector driven worth over N3 trillion. It has been able to contribute to the local domestication of investments in the country.”
Onallo-Akpa described the poultry industry in Nigeria as one of the most consolidated sub-sectors of Nigeria’s agriculture contributing about 25 per cent of the Agricultural Gross Domestic Product (AGDP), creating over 25 million direct and indirect jobs.
He, however, disclosed that the recent Naira redesign policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN) had a negative impacts on the bottom line of poultry farmers across the country as about 15million crates of egg were unsold and some damaged during the period.
The farmers nationwide, he added, also lost over N30 billion in the process.
Onallo-Akpa, however, alerted that, the poultry industry is on the verge of total collapse and extermination because of the negative and devastating consequences of the new currency policy on the industry.
“The near absence of naira notes for Nigerians to make daily transactions have made businesses in the poultry industry more difficult.
“Eggs being daily produced by poultry farmers since the first week of February 2023 till date have never been off-taken by 20 per cent because of the near absence and lack of the naira notes to buy basic food items and other necessary proteins like eggs and chickens,” the PAN president added.
He further called for urgent intervention by the federal government to save the industry from imminent collapse just as he appealed to the government to mop up the eggs through the association for distribution to the most vulnerable old populations as part of the Social Investment Support to Nigerians.
“Encourage the Armed Forces in various peace keeping operations, the Nigerian Prisons, the Internally Displaced Persons and primary schools (School Feeding Programme) to be immediate off-takers of the eggs,” Onallo-Akpa stated.
He also called on the presidency to direct the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the Directorate of Peace Keeping Operations of the Nigeria Armed Forces, the Social Investment Programme of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, and the Disaster Management to work with the association on how immediate reliefs can be extended to poultry farmers across the country to prevent collapse of the poultry Industry.
He equally appealed to government to make available direct grants and financial support to the industry through the association in special packages to be worked out by the government and the association.
