‘Poultry farmers’ registration is the responsibility of both Vet and Animal scientists’

Prof. Eustace Iyayi

Recently, Food FarmNews recently had a chat with the Registrar/ CEO, Nigeria Institute of Animal Science (NIAS) Prof. Eustace Iyayi on various issues and most especially on the mandates of NIAS. Excerpts…

Can you give a rundown of your mandate?

The Institute has a major mandate to regulate all issues related to animal husbandry practice in Nigeria. Our core mandates are three viz; Professional Regulation (Professional resource Verification and Accreditation of Animal Science Departments in Nigerian Universities); Industry Regulation and Advocacy. For Industry regulation, we regulate all the processes involved in the production animals. This includes feed, housing, specialized equipment's and transportation of animals. For advocacy we liaise with the relevant stakeholders in the livestock industry through organized workshop to let them know the advantages of adhering to standards in their operation and also to best practices.

What role can NIAS play in the mitigation of pastoralist-farmers clash?

NIAS supports the resuscitation of existing grazing reserves and actually making them functional. The maintenance of existing pasture corridors and establishment of new ones after due consultation among all stakeholders can help. But more than these the establishment of ranches perhaps is the long term solution to the problem. The pastoralists need to be educated on the need to sedentarize their animal rearing practices. This will enable them benefit from the new techniques for fodder production such as hydroponics (growing fodder in solution in green houses) or vertical fodder farming (growing of fodder in stacks, which are built up like a story building). Both require the use of very minimal land and ensure the production of fodder that can feed large herd of animals. NIAS has been involved with the Federal Ministry of Agric and Rural Development in the past in the resuscitation of grazing reserves. The Institute also has members who have expert knowledge in the establishment of hydroponic farming, vertical farms as well as container farming.

Who, between the Animal Scientists and the Vets have the absolute right to register poultry farmers?

The NIAS Acts makes it clear NIAS is responsible for the regulation of animal husbandry practice in the country. This includes registration of feed mills (Commercial and Toll millers), feed business premises, poultry farms and all other farms involved in the production of other breeds of farm animals. Because the product is as good as the process producing it, the place where the animals are produced, what they are fed with, who the professionals are that handle the production of the feed and manage the animals, the housing type are all regulated by NIAS as mandated in our Acts. We also register the hatchery that produces the day-old-chicks. We do have the standard operating procedure (SOP) for hatchery and minimum standards for feed mills and poultry farms. 

NIAS is the Secretariat of the International Feed Industry Federation (IFIF) and also that of the International Feed Regulators. NIAS leads Nigerian delegates (comprising NAFDAC, FMARD, etc) to the annual International Feed Regulators Meeting (IFRM) in Atlanta. We will be there again this January where NIAS will be playing a leading role to moderate the session on Update on feed legislations in selected countries