‘Virtually everything is being adulterated in Nigeria’-Poultry nutritionist

Professor S. O. Ogundipe

Professor S. O. Ogundipe is a poultry nutritionist. He holds a Master’s Degree in poultry Science and Ph.D in Poultry nutrition and management. He worked at the Ahmadu Bello University from 1970 till his retirement in 2006. Currently, he serves on contract as a lecturer with the Department of Animal Science. He also owns an agricultural company called Rebson. He speaks with AgroNigeria on his company’s foray in feed mill operation, challenges of the industry and possible solutions. Excerpts:


What’s Rebson about?
The company is an agricultural company called Rebson Agricultural Company Ltd. with a feed mill called Rehoboth Feed Center. It was registered in 1995 but because of my activity within the university I did not have time to practice. In 2004, when I was getting close to retirement we decided to start because it is good to have a bit of experience and know whether this is the area to go into. When we started in 2004, we had it rough. I still remain committed to my profession as a lecturer and have to give my full time to that. Even though the feed mill operation is a limited liability company, I have not been able to give it time so as to make it spread beyond this locality but at least the local people know the quality of our product.

What is the company’s production output?
We started by acquiring a ton per hour capacity grinder from a company. Then we constructed a feed mixer. The construction of which I personally supervised, this was constructed locally. Today, our daily output is about three tons because the market around Zaria is highly limited. Since we have not been able to launch out, it regulates our capacity. Although we have the capacity to produce more but now it is still in the range of three tons; just what the local market can absorb. We are planning to launch out soon.

Apart from poultry feed, what are the other products produced?
We produce for a wide range of livestock feed but majority of our production is on poultry. About 80-90 per cent of our production is poultry feed but we also produce ruminant feed. In our plan to expand, we want to expand along the line of livestock ruminant and feed because we have learnt from those who use our feed that the rate of growth of their livestock is high. We also make fish feed and we have testimony that even though our feed is the sinking and not the floating type that the fish grows with less fat and more flesh. People come all the way from Abuja to buy our feed. Ours is not expensive but it is better than most.

                                                                                                                                                              The National Animal Production Research Institute (NAPRI) once imported some rabbit pellets from France for their rabbits. When the pellets finished, they came to us and their testimony is that ours gives them better result than what they had.

What has been your experience concerning accessing funds from the banks?
We have had banks come to us because they saw our operation and feel that we should move ahead of where we are now. The banks have been coming to offer us loan facilities but because I am not fully involved in the business, I will not just want to put money where I cannot supervise. Within the next 4-5 years, if you don’t supervise it you may regret taking that type of loan.

That is the reason why I have been hesitating to go for the loan but now I am at the point where I am trying to invite younger people to team up with me. They will be able to assist me with marketing because at my age I wouldn’t want to get involved in what I cannot handle. It is good to have the youth around so that we can now go into getting some substantial amount to expand beyond this limit of operation. We have also had a meeting with those who are interested in investing in animal feeds. What the Nigerian Institute of Animal Science has done was to bring financial advisers; that are those who can help us package our request for money the way the banks can understand.

They have asked us to submit proposals of what we intend to do so that they can now look at it and package it together and make it bankable as they call it. They will also include foreign partnership with feed millers from outside Nigeria    if we are interested; they want to see how they can arrange so that those foreigners can partner with us.

There is no business that does not have challenges. What are the challenges you face in this business juxtaposed with the challenges in poultry industry in Nigeria?
There are many challenges. They say a prophet has no honor in his own country and I experience that here in Zaria. I consult for many big companies. They know me but locally they will prefer to patronize even some of the companies I am helping. Advertisement has a lot  to do with it, if there is good advert even if the quality of the product is not tops the advert will give the product a name that people will want to identify with, we lack that aspect for now and that is why we are still restricted to Zaria.

Sometimes though we get orders from Port Harcourt and even from as far as Lagos, this is from people who have heard of our product and want to try. If I put a reasonable amount of money we can increase our production capacity and also take care of transportation which is also one of the biggest problems. Conveying the products to distant places takes most of the profit. Generally speaking, in Nigeria I will start with the feed. About 60-70% of poultry production cost is in the feed and this affects our industry. The major problem of the feed miller is the adulteration of the raw materials. Virtually everything is being adulterated in Nigeria. Unfortunately there has been no way to control this.

There is an attempt now by the Nigerian Institute of Animal Sciences to liaise with the Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON) and NAFDAC to go into the area of feed quality regulation. The problem with this is that even though they can regulate the feed I don’t know how they can tackle the issue of the raw materials because the quality of the feed you produce is dependent on the quality of raw materials used. Like with groundnut cake (GNC), we have 2-3 types of materials from some oil millers that look like GNC but are not. An example is Rosselle. The seed of this plant after its oil has been extracted looks like GNC but the quality is not the same. There is also cotton seed and after the oil has been extracted the cake looks like GNC but apparently it has anti nutrients like toxins. When it is used for poultry feeds, the yield drops. Meanwhile these people are just interested in selling their products and can just mix anything with the GNC, adulteration is bad.

That is not the only thing they adulterate, even maize is affected, instead of cleaning the maize they can mix it with ground corn cub to increase the weight. Also some of the imported ingredients too are adulterated. Sometimes Yam or cassava powder is mixed with glucose to make it taste like Methionine. We have these kinds of problems in the industry and government really needs to do something about this. Also if the feed industry can be strong enough to find a way to certify major feed ingredients suppliers then we can now publish the names of genuine ingredient suppliers and this can help control this type of thing. Another problem is that of management. One thing we can do here is to provide extra service that by helping them to monitor their flock so that when any problem arises we know what to do. You see before use to have middle man power institutions like certificate in poultry production.  These groups were specialized for the training of middle men but I don’t know anywhere In Nigeria where they are doing that now.

I think we have neglected agriculture for too long, we don’t have any other option except that we just have to go back. There is no reason why Nigeria should be importing food. A lot of our foreign exchange is going through this, imaging imported chicken still coming into the country. We have the facility and the capacity to absorb this and even though we learnt that they have closed the borders to this, the product still comes in. I think the problem maybe with the price; the one they bring in they claim is cheaper than the one we produce. That is because of our grain supply, the price is high. Presently maize is about N7000 per bag. By the time it is used to produce, the feed will be expensive. So our borders have to be properly closed so that we can do with what we have. This will stimulate the farmers themselves and also stimulate the local production of the poultry.

What do you suggest government do to help the agricultural sector?
I think the former Minister of agriculture Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina has laid a good foundation for the production of agriculture in Nigeria. Many farmers were happy with the Growth Enhancement Support scheme. My hope is that with this government anything that was good with the former government they should sustain it. Where in the past 10-20 farmers were sharing a bag of fertilizer, what do you expect them to produce with that and will be able to feed the nation? If they continue and improve on it very soon we will not need to import rice and other grains. Grain production is also affecting our feed industry. Other sectors of agriculture should also not be left alone. We should look at different associations. That is where they come in.

They are the ones that can inform government on what to do base on the different challenges that they are facing. The government should reach out to this various stake holders, listen to them and see how they can come in to assist them. It will be a thing of pride for me if Nigeria can feed herself; we have the potential why must we be depending on other nations. The present economic crunch hitting us will not be as hard if our agricultural sector is strong. Government should continue to look more into the area of agriculture, invest in mechanization, get more subsidy to the people and encourage the youth.