The Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) has called on President Bola Tinubu to restore grain intervention granted to the sector by the immediate past administration.
The National Publicity Secretary of the association, Mr Godwin Egbebe, made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Lagos.
Egbede lamented the sudden withdrawal of the grain intervention by the new government without notice or reason given to the farmers.
“The withdrawal of the intervention at this time is doing us no good with the current economic situation in the country.
“A tonne of maize in the open markets goes for as high as N350,000 as against N250,000 we used to pay for it.
“Even at the price of N250,000, it was hard for poultry farmers to break even.
“If we increase the price of our produce, especially eggs, we will not have buyers.
“We want the government to intervene and release the 40 metric tons of maize to boost the sector’s productivity and give us more time to pay up,’’ he said.
Egbede recalled that during the immediate past administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, grains were given to the poultry sector at a price between N220,000 to N230,000 per metric ton.
He said the commodity board and the Central Bank of Nigeria gave them the grains as interventions.
“We were given 20,000 metric tons to help us stabilise the price of maize in the market and a window of 48 hours to pay for the commodities.
“Because the time limit given to us was not enough for farmers to raise that kind of money, we have also been given some extension to pay the funds.
“However news reaching us now is that the grain intervention has been cancelled,’’ he said.
Egbede said that the cost of raw materials for feeds had taken its toll on the sector and if nothing was done urgently, more poultry farms would close up.
He, therefore, appealed to the federal government to intervene on this issue promptly. (NAN)