Issues as Nigeria joins the world to celebrate Egg Day

egg

Poultry farmers in Nigeria and their counterparts around the world will tomorrow, Friday, October 14 celebrate the World Egg Day.

The event, which is celebrated every second Friday of October, was established in 1996 in Vienna, Austria at the International Egg Commission (IEC)’s Conference.

The day was designed to raise awareness on the benefits of eggs to human health as the only rich and cheapest source of proteins, vitamins and minerals.

In Nigeria, members of the Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) are converging at Katsina House (Headquarters of PAN), Abuja to mark the day with activities highlighting the contributions of the industry to the economy, challenges facing farmers, opportunities abound therein, and a host of other activities.

While the farmers celebrate egg day, they continue to raise concerns over factors that affect the growth of the industry that contributes over 25% of the GDP in the livestock subsector and the most organized industry in the sector.

Dr. Ayoola Oduntan, National President, Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) in a chat with Daily Trust, appealed to the federal government to pay compensation to farmers that were affected by bird flu this year as promised by the minister, chief Audu Ogbeh, to enable them go back to production.

The PAN President expressed the eagerness of the farmers to the implementation of the school feeding programme, where every child will be given an egg a day.  

Mrs. Talatu Auta is a smallholder poultry farmer at the outskirt of Bwari, Abuja. Like other poultry farmers, her major problem is getting affordable feeds for her birds.

According to her, a bag of feed which hitherto cost N2, 700, now costs N3, 500 raising the cost of production per bird; this also pushed up the prices of table eggs from N600 per crate to N900.

Sam Olusegun Sewoniku is the Business Development Manager, Answer industries Ltd, a poultry producer in Ogun State. He said feed cost and continuous efforts to get a better understanding of available alternative feed ingredients remain a huge challenge, adding that “as of today, feed cost is probably one of the most serious challenges for the industry.”

The egg producer also said disease outbreaks and implementation of bio-security programs threaten the industry in Nigeria in view of huge loses incurred by many farms in the country.

Mr. Sewoniku said there’re still Issues surrounding inclusion of antibiotics in poultry feed and the use of alternatives to antibiotic growth promoters, adding that many hatcheries in the country are running out of good parent stocks.

The farmer also stressed that lack of access to funds and subsidized materials for farmers, will continue to affect smallholder poultry farmers in the country unless government does something.

Another farmer, who wouldn’t want to be mentioned, said successive governments have failed to give attention to the industry. 

He added that many farmers shut down production because of cost of feeds, which takes the choke of their profit.

“Two years ago, I spent N30 million to set up a farm. When bird flu came, the federal ministry of agric depopulated the farm. Later, they offered me N3 million as compensation. I couldn’t get back to production again,” the source said.

However, in a bid to strengthen the industry, the minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, had signed a memorandum of Understanding with Tuns Farms in Osun State to help actualize the National Egg Production Scheme (NEGPRO).

According to the minister, the egg production scheme will help address the challenges of malnutrition amongst many Nigerian children through an egg-a-day policy of the federal government school feeding programme.

NEGPRO targets 50 million table eggs daily by 2018 and millions of jobs to be created through the scheme but yet to make any impact in the industry. Effort to get Alhaji Kahmis Olatunde Badmus, chairman, Tuns Farms to comment on the progress made so far failed.

Even an egg per school child a day policy is yet to take off. The Nigerian poultry industry, however, loses $2.8 billion to smuggling, something the farmers want an end to.