Scores of poultry farmers, under the umbrella of the Poultry Farmers Association of Nigeria (PAN), have lost more than N30 billion worth of over 15 million crates of eggs due to the effect of naira scarcity in the country. In a statement, the PAN National President, Sunday Ezeobiora and Director-General, Onallo Akpa, said that poultry farmers in the country had lost over 15 million crates of eggs being unsold and are damaged. PAN disclosed that the average loss to the poultry industry was presently in excess of over N30 billion.
The body alerted that the poultry industry was on the verge of total collapse and extermination because of the negative and devastating consequences of the new currency policy on the industry, saying “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 offtaken by 20% 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 statement further called on the Federal Government to urgently save the industry from eminent collapse, while appealing for the mopping up of eggs through the association, for distribution to the most vulnerable and old populations, as part of the Social Investment Support to Nigerians.
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