‘Poultry farmers are going through tough time in Nigeria’

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.