If adequate precaution is not taken, many Nigerians will not be able to afford chicken, their easiest regular festive meat, at this forthcoming Christmas, as a unit is likely to go go as high as N10,000, the Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) has warned.
Raising the alarm, Tuesday in a statement, the association linked the utmost reason for this to the unabated increase in feeds prices, especially those of soya beans and soya bean meal, warning that, in the mean time, there is looming possibility of the price of eggs going out of the reach of average Nigerian households, calling on federal government to do something urgently.
Following this, the chairperson of PAN, Ogun State chapter, Blessing Alawode, has appealed to the federal government to save the Nigerian poultry industry from imminent collapse by controlling the skyrocketing prices of bird feeds and concentrates used to feed the chicken, saying the feeds inputs, such as soya beans are fast getting out of the reach of average poultry farmer, thereby threatening to push them out of business. “With the price of the commodity now increased from N115,000 per ton in August to N215,000 in November, 2020, representing an increase of 86.95 percent within a space of three months, there is the likelihood that an average poultry farmer would soon go out of business, even as the government is promoting the policy of surplus job opportunities for the citizens, using especially, farming as a launch pad,” she lamented.
Alawode accused feed millers and merchants, of large-scale corruption by resorting to artificial scarcity via hoarding of the products, and demanded quick intervention from federal government and its agencies, such as the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigeria Customs Service, among others, to do something urgently to save the situation.
She further lamented that the merchants are illegally exporting these products to neighbouring countries, thereby putting unnecessary pressures on the local industry.// SHARE THIS
Tags: Blessing Alawode, PAN