Poultry farmers urge FG to make grains affordable

The Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) has called on the Federal Government to make grains available to poultry farmers at affordable prices. The National Publicity Secretary of PAN, Mr. Godwin Egbebe, in Lagos State, stated that affordable access to grains would ease cost of production in the poultry sub-sector. Egbebe said accessibility to grains for feed production was one of the expectations of its members from President Bola Tinubu’s administration.

“Our expectation from the new administration is that they should be proactive in achieving food security, especially in the poultry sub-sector. We also seek for affordable access to grains for feed production to ease cost of production. Commercial maize and soya are obtained from the North, and we are well aware of insecurity issues there as well as the high transport cost. These are the factors that have made grains, sometimes, inaccessible and when accessible, costly’’, Egbebe said.

He noted that before the insecurity issues became compounded, a ton of grain went for between N200,000 and N220,000. Egbebe lamented that now, a ton of grain was sold for between N290,000 and N310,000. “Once grains are accessible and affordable, we will have enough to produce feed for the birds. This will also lead to drop in prices of poultry produce and the cost of production will be brought to the barest minimum’,’ the PAN official said. Egbebe said that if this was achieved, in the long run, “it is going to be a win-win situation for all players across the poultry value chain”.

He said this would make animal proteins such as eggs and chicken affordable for the average Nigerian. The PAN official noted that the egg glut within the subsector had subsided drastically as “some farmers have dropped out of the business, so we now have fewer egg producers. Presently, a crate of eggs sells at the farm gate from N2,000 to N2,200 depending on the size. The price of eggs and other poultry produce can only go down once we have affordable access to grains and subsequent decrease in production cost”, he stressed. Egbebe, however, said things were a bit stable now and bearable in the sector as farmers were doing all within their power to stay afloat and break even, despite the myriad of challenges in the sub-sector.