Excerpts:

Could you tell us about your operation?
Our operation includes hatchery of day old broiler chicks and we do this on a weekly basis. It involves keeping the parent stock which produces the eggs, hatching on a weekly basis and then selling. We also operate a feed mill.

How long have you been operating?
The company has been in existence since 1974. That was when the company was incorporated and was the only hatchery in the north. We started small and gradually increased production.

What was your take-off capacity?
The take-off capacity was not more than 5,000 chicks, and we started this with the Northern Nigeria Development Company (NNDC) loan and operated until the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) of the Ibrahim Babangida government was introduced and this affected the operation. We were paying 9% interest rate on the loan, but with the introduction of SAP, it was jacked up to 20%. With this, it became difficult for us to run the operation, and we closed up around 1990. We began operating again in 2009/2010, when the NIRSAL facilities came up through the CBN. We took advantage of that, got some financing from there and acquired our parent stock in 2010. We have been on for five years now, as operations did not take-off fully until 2011.

What is your present production capacity?
The full production capacity of our facility is 80,000 chicks per week; but we have stabilized our production to between 15,000 and 20,000 per week. This depends on what you get from the birds due to factors like feed, management issues and so on.
                                           
Tell us about your market situation, what is it like?
I studied marketing as a course and there are lot of factors and teachings that I have learned, but in this business the market is so dynamic. It changes quite often and the price can change every week.  There is a monopoly from the western part of the country; Ibadan and Lagos, because they are the major producers of this product. With the large market in the north, I don’t think there is too much competition. The market is already there, it is just for me to agree with the buyers.

We have our regular buyers who are dealers, they buy to sell. People book with them and then, they come to us. Our market cuts across: Kaduna, Kano, Zamfara, Bauchi, Gombe and Niger states. The market is so big and you just take up your share. Even if you are hatching as much as 100,000 chicks, there is a ready market because the south west has a very large chunk of their market in the north and I’ll tell you why. You see over there in the south west, there is a lot of competition. If someone from Ibadan is buying a broiler, he will like to choose a particular breed because the species are different and they are more aware and informed than people here in the north.

They prefer to look for, and purchase particular breeds. On the other hand, anything that is pushed up here is just mopped up without a fuss because of lack of awareness and demand. This is even more so during festive periods; Christmas, fasting, Sallah etc. Our market relies more on customers who are not season oriented. Even if you will offer to pay double for our product, I would rather not disappoint my regular customer. The market is usually at its peak between the month of August and November. During this period, we sell for as much as N180-N190 per chick, as against the normal periods when we sell for N90. In Ibadan for example they have over 100 hatcheries, and there are certain companies that produce hybrid chicks and usually their price is high but there are also local hatcheries that also produce low priced chicks.

 When buying from some of the mushroom hatcheries, you are not sure of the quality of the product. This is because when you insist on a particular product, some of them will sometimes package their products in high breed company packages and sell. This is criminal and detrimental to the industry, and they are some of the challenges we face.

Where do you get your parent stock from?        
We get our parent stock from CHI, Ajala Farms, Ibadan, which is a very renowned company in the business. They are the owners of the Abor Accer plus breed, which I think is a franchise. Their birds are short and very rugged in nature and are usually ready for consumption within 6 weeks. You know some of our buyers may buy our products, not do the right thing and come back to complain.

One of the advantages we have over the people at Ibadan is that our birds get to customers stronger and we usually have after sale services where we reach out to our customers and advice them. With the experience we have, we are able to create a program, where we tell our buyers what they need to do from one week to another and how they can reach us in cases of issues, adding that we would compensate them if the fault is from us.

This is very good customer relationship I must say
You know I told you I studied marketing. I try to be very patient with them because sometimes they get angry and accuse us wrongly, but that is one of the hazards of the business I guess.

Presently you only hatch broiler chicks for sale but not broilers. Do you have any future plan to diversify?
Yes, we do and that is our second plan.  We are trying to establish a second line, so that we can create a cold room, then at any given time we will have dressed broilers for sale. One of the challenges we are facing here in the north is that most people don’t easily want to buy the dressed chickens. They prefer to get the live ones, slaughter and dress them. Along the line, we are working towards how to create awareness and have this second line of service. We only hatch broiler chicks now, but we also intend to produce layers in the near future.


Do you produce your own feed?
Our feed mill has the capacity of producing four metric tons of feed in an hour. The machines are very big and have been here since the 1970s and they still function very well. Right now, we don’t produce any feed. We buy our concentrates from a very competent and reliable company in Kaduna. You know these birds are very delicate; you cannot just start doing your feed anyhow. If you don’t get it right, it will affect their productivity. So I have confidence in my suppliers, Feed Masters. I get my concentrates from them, while I get my maize and wheat bran locally. We blend it here in our mill and I have been getting results. I get up to 70% in production and that is a very good percentage which anyone who is in this business knows.

What is your company’s staff capacity? 
Presently we have 50 staff. Some of them have to work on shifts and most of them are from this community.

As we all know, poultry requires a lot of medical attention. How do you get this for your birds? 
Yes, we usually have safety measures, a consultancy service and a vet doctor that is very experienced. In this type of business, there must be expertise in the management. There is a saying; if your environment is clean, you don’t need to take any drugs. Thus, we have a sanitized environment and very clean water. There are some challenges in the business, such as diseases like salmonella which can cause the chickens to start dying. So, we service our water regularly and keep a much sanitized environment; prevention, they say is better than cure.

What major challenges are you currently facing in this business?
The major challenge we are currently facing is that of power. In this operation, you need 24 hours of power supply. If there is no light for 5-10 minutes in the hatchery, we are in trouble. So, we had to have our own power back up generating system which is more expensive to run. Another challenge we have, especially during festive periods is our inability to sometimes meet our customer’s demand and you will just have to share what you have as best as you can. If somebody wants say 2000 birds, you might end up giving him 1500. Government policies can also pose a challenge, because if the system is not right, I don’t see how you can operate as a private entrepreneur. Government policies must not only favor the industry, but must also be sustainable because we have to exist within the system. With this new government, we are hoping to see some improvement.

The Federal Government recently banned importation of poultry; what’s your view on this?
The ban on imported poultry is really going to help boost the local industry and our business; it is the right move for many reasons. Most of the imported poultry are not checked, they are usually expired and not fit for human consumption. We don’t know where they come from, or what kind of treatment they have undergone before being shipped down here. It was even alleged that some of these products are treated with formaldehyde to preserve them, now that could be quite deadly. So if this ban could be fully enforced and sustained, I believe we will be better off.

As a key player in poultry sector, what will be your advice to the Federal Government?
Yes, the government should give more attention to agriculture, because it is the future of the Nigerian economy. Apparently, oil is no longer worth its weight in gold, and I am very happy about that because we are not supposed to put all our eggs in one basket. The time has come for us to do something about that and I tell you agriculture is the answer. You see we have a very large population that is growing by the day and this translates to a greater number of very restive unemployed youths which is very bad for our nation’s security. At the same time, these same youths can also be what will make Nigeria a great nation tomorrow if they are given the opportunity. What the government needs to do is make agriculture more than just a rural man’s profession. It must be made a very attractive and viable business through, mechanization, easy access to financing and inputs, so the youths can be involved. I tell you Nigeria has the potential in both human resources and land to become a world player in this sector, all we need is the political will.

SOURCE: AgroNigeria