‘Effective collaboration critical to poultry feeds economy’

The Ogun State Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Mrs Modupe Mujota‎, explained that there is strength in numbers, urging the poultry farmers to collaborate more effectively in a bid to address other numerous challenges confronting the nation’s poultry industry.
‎
The commissioner during the 2017 world egg day organised by the Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) Ogun State chapter, added that the association can also use its strength to collectively store poultry feeds while putting in place a management structure to sell at competitive prices to poultry farmers.

Mujota also stressed that credible collaboration would also avail poultry farmers opportunities to get easy access to finance at bankable interest rate if they work effectively as a group.

She said forging alliances within ‎the association would go a long way to address majority of the challenges hindering the growth of the poultry industry.
She implored Nigerian women to be creative using eggs in more ways than one when cooking, saying that this would help to increase the per capita consumption of eggs in Nigeria.
‎
Earlier, the Chairperson, PAN, Ogun State Chapter, Mrs. Blessing Alawode, expressed concerns over the low per capita consumption of eggs in the country, saying that currently Nigeria’s per capita consumption is a far cry from what is obtainable globally.

She added that the association is faced with myriad of challenges which includes high cost of production as a result of the unavailability of poultry feeds, high interest rates and the low consumption patterns of consumers.
‎
In her words: “We have problems with accessing credit and if available, the interest rate is at double digits. Poultry is a branch of agriculture and there is no way we can be competitive borrowing at double digit interest rates. Anything outside a single digit interest rate is not competitive for the poultry farmer.‎”

She added that Nigeria cannot afford to ignore the poultry industry as it currently employs over two million Nigerians directly and indirectly, adding that the industry’s contribution to the agriculture value chain is about 25 per cent.

She noted that the yearly event is a day set aside to celebrate the wonderful qualities of egg while also educating the public about the numerous health benefit of egg consumption.