Poultry farmers in Nigeria have lamented that the Federal Government’s current fiscal policy may stifle the industry into what it calls a “total collapse”. The National President, Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN), Ichie Sunday Ezeobiora, and Director-General, Onallo Akpa, disclosed that the “current policy and fiscal siege on the poultry industry in Nigeria”, warning that the action can put the “industry on the verge of total collapse”. The association is also worried about the consequences of the recent government’s pronouncement over a change in foreign exchange policy on 43 items, including rice and poultry products.
“The recent development from the pronouncement from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will make Nigeria revert to the pre-year 2000 when Nigeria was completely a dumping ground for all sorts of imported poultry products. Recall the cases of unhealthy frozen poultry meat stored with chemicals imported into the country. The implications of the recent policy of the removal of foreign exchange and the further explanation by the CBN that the products were not even banned, in the first place, contravenes the fiscal policy stand of the government and have obviously created an unacceptable impasse in poultry development.
PAN called for “immediate engagement with the association towards making available needed raw materials like maize and soya to revive the collapsing farms, as the poultry industry is the most capitalised subsector of Nigerian agriculture”. The poultry industry is an industry worth over N12 trillion and provides over 20 million direct and indirect jobs to Nigerians. The industry has, for the last five years in Nigeria, remained the number one egg-producing nation in Africa and the fifth in broiler meat production in Africa.
