‘Poultry farmers selling farms to relocate abroad’

Kingsley Imasuen is a former chairman, Poultry Association of Nigeria, Edo State chapter. In this interview, he spoke on the challenges faced by poultry farms,..

. By Usman A. Bello, Benin Kingsley Imasuen is a former chairman, Poultry Association of Nigeria, Edo State chapter.

In this interview, he spoke on the challenges faced by poultry farms, as while poultry and its products are on the high side; economic downturn is affecting the farmers among others. How will you describe the challenges of the price of feeds? In my years of poultry farming, every location has its own challenges; those that are close to where poultry feeds are produced, their challenges are not as high as those of us in Edo State because those who bring it here will still need to add transport charges. Now, the price of a bag of feed is N20,000 and above for the layer and N18,000 and above for the broiler.

So, the feed is one of the biggest challenges and because of this, a crate of eggs is now N4,000 and above. The ingredients are not available locally and the cost of the imported items and other materials for feed is high. In Edo, apart from these challenges, we also have the challenge of labour because our boys have gone to Italy and other European countries, so we have to bring boys from other places.

But they are not reliable and they often come back in the night to steal from the farms. All these are adding to the cost of production and because of it, farmers will add the cost therefore the poultry.