Poultry farmer |
Mr. John
Dassar is the Plateau State chapter chairman of Poultry Association of Nigeria.
In this interview conducted by Food Farm News he spoke on the struggle of the
bird raisers to keep afloat in these lean times, the contagious and zoonotic
bird flu and what the government should do to help the farmers. Excerpts…
Can you introduce yourself?
My name is
John C. Dasar, I am the chairman, Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) Plateau
state chapter.
I presume we are here purposely on the new outbreak of Avian
Influenza in the country. And this time a higher version of what we had in 2006
and 20088, can you give us a background of this disease?
Yes, this
present outbreak is the higher version of the Avian Influenza. But basically
what we are here for is to talk about compensation. In2006, we had an outbreak
of this Avian Influenza and we were able to control it. in 2015, February
precisely, there were lot of our members
who were affected by the outbreak of
this same bird flu, and the government came to show interest in the plight of
these farmers by promising to pay compensation. Initially they had agreed to
pay compensation of N1, 450.00 per bird, but eventually they had changed because
of the economic situation coupled with the fast spreading of the disease which
has increased the numbers of the people they have to cater for as regards
compensation.
In 2015 some farmers were paid compensation, but there are
pockets of other victims that are yet to be paid. Now 2016 came, we had
resurgence of the same disease as there are lot of people affected that have
not been paid till now. We have heard Government promises that the payment will
be made when the budget is signed. But up till now after the signing of the
budget, we have received no kobo.
The Minister has decided to meet with us
today about the compensation issue. It is important to let Nigerians and the
government know that poultry farmers are going through tough times in terms of
cost of production and bird flu attack, and that is why we are calling for the
payment of the compensation to make farmers bounce back to production. We will
continue to cry and complain for this payment because the effect of the disease
to farmers is very devastating.
You will see that the disease is zoonotic,
which means, it can affect human beings as well, and we must not wait until it
degenerates to killing human beings before action is taken to ensure
containment. The reason why things are going this way is because the
compensations are yet to be paid, and many of the avian influenza affected
farms are already selling off their birds, thereby spreading the disease the
more. So we need to look at ways of containing this disease, otherwise we will
be left behind.
What is your take about the compensation term?
Well, a lot
much time we bring out policy we cannot implement, we need to sit down and look
at this disease, particularly first, we are not going forward with compensation
to only farmers with 3,000 birds and below. This is not the way to go forward
by poultry development policy to ensuring food security of school feeding
programme of one egg per day for pupils. What becomes of those farmers with birds above 3,000-4,000.
What government is saying is that anybody with the mind of large scale
production of eggs in this country is ‘on his own’. If I put 20,000 or 50,000
birds for example, and government can only pay 3,000 and below, what is this
supposed to mean? It means you are
telling us not to go large scale, while we are supposed to be boosting farming
business in the country to checkmate egg and other food import. One other
aspect government is not considering is that PAN is the only association that
provides the huge chunk of job to the teeming population.
If we pegged
compensation to 3,000 and below, what it means is that you are indirectly
reducing the capacity of the employers compared to when you have 50,000 birds
where about 10-20 people will be employed. Now people are scared to put in more
birds because of the fear of lack of compensation. Remember the Minister say
the compensation is going to be 75% as the FG will be paying 50% while state
government will pay the rest 25% while the farmers pay the rest 25% risk
losses. The question is, are the states ready to pay? The great concern is the
non-readiness of these states’ government to make payment to poultry farmers is
of great concern.
Many of them are still battling with workers’ salaries
payment, and some of them are already saying poultry keeping is not the only
agricultural business they can do. So if we go that way what becomes of the
farmers? I think we need to critically look at all this issue for the
development of the sub sector.
Okay let me put it this way, what is your take on the way
government can go about the compensation payment?
Compensation
should be holistic; we should encourage our farmers to go into business across
border, more so as I have earlier said that the PAN contributes nothing less
than 25% of Agricultural Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to the economy.
Is it not based on this achievement that Government was
saying people with 4,000 birds should be compensated?
No, it is
3,000 below that will be compensated by Government, while 4,000 above will go
through insurance. How many insurance companies can afford to pay premium. You
heard NAIC saying that throughout last year of Avian Influenza, they were only able to pay,while the government
has to pay Seven Hundred Seven Million naira out of which only 80 million naira
was paid in all the total outstanding. If the insurance company is not well
funded, what can they do as the acting managing director of Nigerian
Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC) has pointed out that most states
government are not paying their dues to the company. So how are they going to pay
the compensation? You have 50,000, 1,000 birds, and the insurance are not there
to pay.
So what exactly do you want as regards this payment?
First we must curb this disease; we must stop
the spread of the disease. The critical point here is that most farmers because
of the fear of 2015-2016 nonpayment of this compensation. They are going behind
selling out these diseased birds at night into the market. They go out to sell
the sick birds in the night and thereby polluting the birds’ population. This
is what we do not want in this business of ours, we are also causing harm to
the general public; therefore what I want government to do is to give farmers
some sense of hope that whenever a farmer runs into such problem like bird flu,
they should be promptly compensated without any delay. In other countries with
this similar problem, within 54-36 hours, the farm is culled, sealed and the
farmer is paid compensation to bounce back and avoid further spread. The reason
is that if they do not do it like this, somebody might start selling the sick
birds into the market thereby spreading the disease into human beings.
How is the PAN coping with the cost of feed production in
the business of poultry?
The association
is really suffering, we are battling with exchange rate as regards maize and
soybean as this cost of things being sold by millers cannot allow break even. So,
the entire burden is passed to farmers. But we as farmers are not getting
anything in returns because the price of eggs in the market is not commensurate
with the cost of production.
The cost of production is so high as a bag of feed
is sold for N3,500, and a bag can only take care of 200 birds. From 200 birds,
you can only get 3-5 crates which translate that one is getting maximum
production of 75%-95%. If you factor this one into the cost of vaccines which
is three times increased to what we used to buy in the past. So you are
basically not in business if the cost of the eggs remain N800-N850 until is
increased to N1,000 and above. We are really not doing business. So what we
want is that government should cushion the effect. Most of our millers have to
import maize from Brazil and Argentina. What is happening to us here is that
the FOREX cannot be sourced at N490.00 to import all these, it will jump up the
cost of production. If that happens, it means the farmers are at the receiving
end.
What is the solution?
FOREX must
be brought down. Some bottle necks in the production and processing value
chains must be removed to favour millers just as the issue of multiple
taxation. There is need to have a policy that will reduce cost of production
for farmers to thrive. There are so many indices to be looked at. If they do
not do that, then it will be difficult for the farmers to survive.
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