The immediate past National President of the Poultry Association of Nigeria, Dr Ayoola Oduntan, has said over N2.5bn worth of locally produced chickens are wasting away in cold rooms across the country due to inadequate patronage.
He disclosed this on Tuesday at the Nigeria Poultry Show tagged, ‘Abeokuta 2017’ at the Providence Event Centre, Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.
Oduntan in his address titled, ‘Nigerian Poultry Show: Then, Now and Future’, said with the illegal importation of chickens, the youths that could have been employed in the poultry sector were roaming the streets.
Oduntan said, “Poultry is a trillion naira business in Nigeria. Seventy-five per cent of chickens consumed in this country are smuggled in.
“Millions of jobs have been given to people in other countries while our youths are roaming the streets unemployed.
“N2.5bn worth of frozen chickens is wasting away in cold rooms all around Nigeria, produced in Nigeria by Nigerian farmers; while the people that are smuggling in chickens are feeding fat from the joblessness of our people.”
The keynote speaker and President of Animal Care Services Konsult (Nig) Limited, Dr Olatunde Agbato, told poultry farmers that only “efficient producers with advantages of economies of scale are likely to remain in business.”
He challenged farmers to increase their productivity and remain committed to standards by seeking knowledge to keep them in line with global best practices.
Agbato said, “Unless and until those producing, processing, transporting or retailing poultry products can make a decent living out of these preoccupations, the industry will continue to grope in the dark.
“While we continue to hope for a better operating environment in which government and our system actively support farmers, please let us take our desting in our own hands.
“Let us control what we can control, improve what we can improve, and eliminate waste that is within our capacity to eliminate.”
In his welcome address, the National President of PAN, Mr. Ezekiel Ibrahim, said in the last three years, the poultry industry had witnessed the most challenging circumstances in production and marketing.
The Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun, urged the farmers to find ways of marketing their products.
Amosun, represented by his Senior Special Assistant on Agriculture, Semiu Alao, said the government had purchased bulldozers to clear farmlands in the state and also to help farmers.
He added that the state would have 60,000 broiler farms in all the three senatorial districts of the state with a view to boosting poultry farming.
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