The Chairman, Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN), Iyiola Mojeed,Lagos State chapter has called on governments at all levels to take the issue of farm security seriously and assist in protecting farmers from violence and insecurity.
Iyiola, who made the call in Lagos in an interview, said there was need for practical solutions to insecurity in the farms and urged governments to address the issue without further delay, reports Daily Independent.
He said that poultry farmers in the country are facing hard times and that they need government assistance to address high production costs and farm closures, stressing that they want maize, soya, and other ingredients to be more affordable.
Iyiola stated that currently, the business is no longer profitable as most poultry farmers have closed shops.
“I have 30 to 40 percent of big poultry farmers in Lagos State have closed down their farms because they make losses on a daily basis. The availability and prices of maize, soya and wheat, the major components of feed in our industry have gone to the extreme, meaning that production of eggs and other poultry products is at risk in the country, which normally should not be.
“Maize can be produced all year round in Nigeria. The larger chunk of the maize used in our industry is sourced from the northern part of the country and as we all know, the issue of banditry has driven most of the farmers away from their farms, many of them have relocated to other regions and engage in other economic activities like many seen in Lagos riding ‘Okada’ this is seriously affecting the industry.
“So we are now proposing a stop gap solution to address this problem to prevent total collapse of the industry.
Speaking further he said a lot of jobs are being lost, that so many farms are widely closed.
“Many are still closing, and many want to close because they cannot meet up. Imagine the price of a crate of egg being sold at N3,000 that is way, far below production cost. And this does not help at all.
“It is no more attractive because of the indices that the farmer needs to put in place. So, we are calling upon the government to please help in this aspect because when there is a total collapse, unemployment will just be everywhere with what is happening again. And now, I want to call on the Lagos state government to look into an egg per child in schools whereby the students will be given the protein value of egg.
“It’s not being done again. We want to call on the Federal Government to please look into it. The states will emulate this so that poultry farmers will be happy that at least their eggs will be sold.
“The issue of egg glut was initially a perennial problem, but today it’s an annual problem and when it comes, usually before, within two to three months we get over it but this time around it has come to stay permanently and this is what we don’t want.
“So, we are crying to governments in various capacities, starting with the local to states and the federal governments, to protect this industry from total collapse because if the problems we are facing now are not addressed immediately, it could lead to the total collapse of the industry.
We cannot overemphasise the importance of our industry because our presence affects virtually every human life, starting from the babies, male and female, old and young.
He added that if the industry is allowed to collapse it would have a profound negative impact on human lives most especially in Nigeria.
In developed countries, according to him, the wellbeing of poultry farmers are not taken for granted, their government’s do all they could do to assist the industry but in Nigeria the reverse is the case.
“So we’re appealing to the government to come to our help considering the importance of our industry,” he said.
