February 20, 2009
As the ripples generated by the current global economic meltdown and financial crisis in major advanced capitalist economies of the world, triggered by the collapse of leading financial institutions in the United States of America (Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and AIG), brought about by the collapse of housing market and high default experienced on sub-prime mortgages continue to spread across the globe, underdeveloped economies of third world countries like Nigeria, is experiencing the negative effects. The Nigerian economy is presently gravitating towards the brink of collapse. This has prompted the government to inaugurate the presidential steering committee on global economic meltdown, to recommend ways of alleviating the effects on Nigerians, essentially in the face of falling crude oil price at the international market, which has continued to shrink the available petrol-dollar wealth for official looting. This is coming after months of denial by government and its economic wizards, maintaining that the economy was immune, therefore, not susceptible to global economic vectors!
Contrary to government official figures, indicating that the economy was robust and healthy, the Nigerian economy has been long ailing. This is beside the point that, Nigeria, blessed with stupendous inexhaustible wealth (both natural and human resources), has made fabulous sum of money from crude oil. Between May 1999 till June 2008, the country has made unprecedented income totaling 30.78trillion naira, accruing from the sales of crude oil at the international market. Yet, all sectors of the Nigerian economy remained largely underdeveloped, partly due to misappropriation, bad governance and corruption, but mainly traceable to implementation of World bank/IMF dictated neo-liberal capitalist policies by successive governments. These pro-rich and anti-poor policies of free market, deregulation of petroleum industry, commercialization of education, privatization of public utilities and globalization, had ensured that our collective patrimonies are sold by government officials to themselves through fronted companies and their allies out side government, under the guise of government not having business doing business. This counter-productive system has created few super-rich individuals, but thrown up decayed public infrastructure, collapse of industries, high cost of education without commensurate standard, poor health services, low agricultural production etc, leading to poor standard of living for the majority. This terrible state of affairs in Nigeria has impacted negatively on the economy, including the poultry industry.
THE NIGERIAN POULTRY INDUSTRY
The poultry sub-sector of the economy in Nigeria remains chiefly primitive! This is because government, at all levels, has neglected it for a long time. The poultry industry in Nigeria currently has about 10% of the population, and is responsible for less than 15-18% employment opportunities, due to the fact that the industry is mainly subsistent. Commercial poultry farming pioneered in late 50 and early 60, by Oke-Affa Farms, Isolo, Lagos witnessed increasing growth due to massive government investments, leading to the establishment of Ajayi Farms in Ikeja and Mitchel Farms,Agege, and other across the country. This subsequently brought about demands for agro-allied products, leading to the establishment of agro-allied industries, pioneered by Pfizer in commercial feed milling and veterinary pharmaceutical products.
The phenomenal growth in the industry continued uninterruptedly, with profiteers like Obasanjo Farms, Zartect, CHI Ajanla, Sanbawa Farms, Anicare Konsult and UAC Marquis Farms coming on board, until 1986 when the industry suffered its first major attacks. This was a big setback to the industry, for large number of poor farmers suffered serious loses, which till date, some are still struggling to overcome. The said attack was occasioned by the military junta of Ibrahim Babagida’s blanket imposition of World Bank/IMF dictated neo-liberal capitalist policies of Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP). This pro-rich, anti-people policy led to the massive devaluation of the naira, ban on the importation of grains (a major raw materials in the poultry industry), commercialization of education and other anti-poor policies, which made life unbearable for the poor majority, including farmers, who could not afford to feed their birds, due to high cost of production, resulting to closure of farms. Whilst the big profiteers in the poultry industry made fortune.
In Nigeria the importance of the poultry industry cannot be over emphasized, bacause of the vital roles it plays in human nutrition. Of equal value is the employment opportunity it provides for the teeming population. The industry, if desired attention is paid by government at all levels, can successfully absorbs a large number of unemployed youths across the country, currently roaming about in search of unavailable jobs, through its chain of agro-allied industry; commercial feed and toll milling, poultry products processing, poultry marketing, veterinary pharmaceutical, hatchery operation and breeder farming. In addition, the industry if properly harnessed, can also serve as source of foreign earnings, complementing the crude oil (our main sources of foreign earnings presently), responsible for over 90% of our exports. Egg, a product of the industry, gives about 3.5g of the total 7.2g animal protein requires for individual dietary need per day. Again, broiler (table meat chicken) is the toast of every fast food outlets across the country. This is because chicken meat is cholesterol free! Compare to red meat like beef, mutton, pork, veal, venison, and others, which contains cholesterol (a chemical substance), responsible for the increasing rate of heart diseases amongst Nigerians in recent times.
CHALLENGES FACING THE NIGERIAN POULTRY INDUSTRY
The Nigerian poultry industry at the moment is bedeviled by enormous problems. Among which are lack of government funding, lack of credit facility, high cost of feeding ingredients, diseases, increasing cost of medications, marketing and lack of storage facility. Lack of government investments in the agricultural sector, particularly the poultry industry is the bane of the industry. This is due to government adherence to neo-liberal economic policies as dictated by world bank/IMF that forbid government direct investments and subsidies for the sector, leading to the collapse of farms owned by poor farmers across the country and the resultant lost of jobs, due to prohibitive cost of production. This made it possible for big farms like Obasanjo Farms Nig Ltd,Otta; Zartech Farms,Ibadan; CHI Ajanla Farms,Ibadan; Animalcare Services Konsult (Nig) Ltd ,Ogere, Ogun State; Zarm Poultry and FeedMill Industry Ltd, Ilemona, Kwara State;Sambawa Farms Nig Ltd , Kaduna, in the northern part of the country to dominate the poultry business, amassing huge profits in the process, to the detriment of poor farmers.
Another obstacle confronting the poultry industry in Nigeria is the inability of a large number of farmers particularly the poor ones to secure loans from both commercial and micro finance banks across the country. This is because most of these banks attach much conditionality that is beyond the reach of the farmers. Some of these conditions include; Collateral (landed properties), 25% interest rate, 3-6months moratoria, and other sundry charges, making access to loans practically impossible for poor farmers, despite the banks much vaunted farmer’s friendly agricultural loans in Nigeria. The government owned Nigerian Agricultural Cooperative and Rural Development Bank (NACRDB) across the country has not done better. The only exceptions to these rules are the rich local and multinational farms, which are connected to banks CEO’s and officials at the corridor of power. This was the lot of poultry farmers in Nigeria, before the current global economic crisis, that has led to the loss of 368billion naira of bank loans invested in stocks. In the coming periods, the industry will face serious crisis, because it will be much easier for the proverbial camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for poor farmers obtaining loans from banks. This is a sad commentary on government so-called small and medium scale entrepreneurship drive.
Infectious diseases are another major challenge to the industry, because of the economic importance of disease causing organisms like bacteria, virus, fungal and protozoan, which birds are susceptible to, bringing about devastating effects to both the flocks and the farmers. For instance, the outbreak of Avian Influenza otherwise known as bird flu, in 2005/2006,led to the death of over 1.5 million birds across the country. It will be recalled that large number of poor farmers lost their means of livelihood, when their flocks were destroyed by government without compensations, whilst the rich farms (Obasanjo’s, Sambawa among others) made fortune from both government and foreign donor agencies. Poultry farmers nationwide also suffered from other infections, like Newcastle disease, Avian coryza, infectious bursa disease, fowl cholera, fowl typhoid amongst others, which are equally deadly to the birds. In fact this writer lost over 2,000 birds to Newcastle disease in December 2008, which he is yet to recovered from! The government in the past used to take measures to prevent and control livestock diseases, through the establishment of research institutes across the country, like the National Veterinary Research Institute (NVRI), Vom, Plateau State, for the production of vaccines. But due to under funding of agriculture sector by successive governments, the institute could barely sustain itself let alone being able to produce enough vaccines to meet the growing needs of poultry farmers. The adverse effect of this is manifested in the growing rate of vaccine importations by rich farmers from other countries. The poor farmers patronize the importers, whose vaccines’ shelf life and cold chain has been altered, due to long storage, hence, the losses resulting from vaccination failures and associated diseases. This explains the losses suffered by this writer and many others poultry farmers across Nigeria.
High cost of feed ingredients is another death knell of the industry. The perennial scarcity occasioned by high cost of feed materials especially maize has been a recurring decimal in the poultry industry in Nigeria. This has resulted in large number of farmers closing shops, because of their inability to feed birds. In 2008, due to the global food crisis, the price of maize and other materials like Soya beans soar beyond the reach of poor farmers, leading to farm closure and the resultant job loses. The public outcry generated by these loses compelled the federal government through its ministry of agriculture and rural development, to release maize from the national strategic grains reserves. But due to its commitment to big profiteers, a large quantity of the maize went to big farmers, while members of the executive of Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) also benefited. Those poor poultry farmers who could not buy the product from PAN executives at the exorbitant price have to simply close down their farms. The remaining few farmers still struggle to survive all these aforementioned onslaughts are again constrained by marketing, leading to the perennial eggs glut suffered by farmers across the country.
THE WAY FORWARD
Flow from the foregoing analysis, it is obvious that the poultry sub sector of the economy is in dire need of attention. This need has been heightened by the present global financial crisis and economic recession. But to expect this government to revive the poultry industry in particular or the Nigerian economy in general on permanent basis at the face of plummeting international crude oil price, will be wishful thinking. This is because at the best of times when government at all levels (federal, state and local) were literally swimming in petro-dollars wealth; nothing concrete was done by the government to improve the economic well-being of the suffering majority, nor was attempt made to diversify the economy which is solely based on exportation of crude oil. Rather, the huge sums of money realized were either diverted through over bloated contracts, or looted outright by government officers.
The Minister of Finance, Dr Mansur Muhtar, at the inauguration of the new National Economic Management Team (NEMT) in Abuja, said “ the global financial crisis and economic downturn have impacted negatively on the environment in Nigeria. While we were able to weather the first round effects of the global crisis, subsequent deterioration in the global economic and financial environment has exposed our country to considerable shocks. We need to move speedily to reposition our economy to adequately respond to the accompanying global slowdown in a more comprehensive and holistic fashion. The Nigeria economy is at a critical junction and our success in effectively responding to the current global economic crisis would be vital to laying the foundation for a more diversified and resilient economy” (The Vanguard, Tuesday, February 3,2009). The implications of this verbose economic grandstanding by the minister is that, hard times awaits the already pulverized poverty stricken Nigerians, because there is going to be increase cut back on social services by the government, if nothing is done by the working people including farmers to defend themselves. So they must brace up for the challenges.
In the final analysis, this government like its counterpart in advanced capitalist economies cannot resolve the present global economic recession on permanent basis, so long the reign of capital remains supreme. Capitalism, the current world economic ideology, is a vicious circle replete with intermittent global economic crisis, global food crisis, global warming, environmental degredation, wars, unemployment, illiteracy, natural disasters, corruption, homelessness, and other social, political and economic ills. Therefore, there is need to break completely with this unjust system. Towards this end, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC), Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN), and other civil society organizations, must commence mass mobilization of workers, farmers, students, market men and women for a day of action to protest the poor living conditions of Nigerians and demand a break with the present economic system. Subsequently, this should evolve into forming mass working class political party, which will make nationalization of the major sectors of the economy including the poultry industry, its cardinal program, so as to plan the economy, through democratic control and management by workers, with a view to meeting the needs of all, against the profit motive of few rapacious individuals. Then can the economy and the poultry industry witness the desired growth.
Eko John Nicholas
08022634850
[email protected]
Contrary to government official figures, indicating that the economy was robust and healthy, the Nigerian economy has been long ailing. This is beside the point that, Nigeria, blessed with stupendous inexhaustible wealth (both natural and human resources), has made fabulous sum of money from crude oil. Between May 1999 till June 2008, the country has made unprecedented income totaling 30.78trillion naira, accruing from the sales of crude oil at the international market. Yet, all sectors of the Nigerian economy remained largely underdeveloped, partly due to misappropriation, bad governance and corruption, but mainly traceable to implementation of World bank/IMF dictated neo-liberal capitalist policies by successive governments. These pro-rich and anti-poor policies of free market, deregulation of petroleum industry, commercialization of education, privatization of public utilities and globalization, had ensured that our collective patrimonies are sold by government officials to themselves through fronted companies and their allies out side government, under the guise of government not having business doing business. This counter-productive system has created few super-rich individuals, but thrown up decayed public infrastructure, collapse of industries, high cost of education without commensurate standard, poor health services, low agricultural production etc, leading to poor standard of living for the majority. This terrible state of affairs in Nigeria has impacted negatively on the economy, including the poultry industry.
THE NIGERIAN POULTRY INDUSTRY
The poultry sub-sector of the economy in Nigeria remains chiefly primitive! This is because government, at all levels, has neglected it for a long time. The poultry industry in Nigeria currently has about 10% of the population, and is responsible for less than 15-18% employment opportunities, due to the fact that the industry is mainly subsistent. Commercial poultry farming pioneered in late 50 and early 60, by Oke-Affa Farms, Isolo, Lagos witnessed increasing growth due to massive government investments, leading to the establishment of Ajayi Farms in Ikeja and Mitchel Farms,Agege, and other across the country. This subsequently brought about demands for agro-allied products, leading to the establishment of agro-allied industries, pioneered by Pfizer in commercial feed milling and veterinary pharmaceutical products.
The phenomenal growth in the industry continued uninterruptedly, with profiteers like Obasanjo Farms, Zartect, CHI Ajanla, Sanbawa Farms, Anicare Konsult and UAC Marquis Farms coming on board, until 1986 when the industry suffered its first major attacks. This was a big setback to the industry, for large number of poor farmers suffered serious loses, which till date, some are still struggling to overcome. The said attack was occasioned by the military junta of Ibrahim Babagida’s blanket imposition of World Bank/IMF dictated neo-liberal capitalist policies of Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP). This pro-rich, anti-people policy led to the massive devaluation of the naira, ban on the importation of grains (a major raw materials in the poultry industry), commercialization of education and other anti-poor policies, which made life unbearable for the poor majority, including farmers, who could not afford to feed their birds, due to high cost of production, resulting to closure of farms. Whilst the big profiteers in the poultry industry made fortune.
In Nigeria the importance of the poultry industry cannot be over emphasized, bacause of the vital roles it plays in human nutrition. Of equal value is the employment opportunity it provides for the teeming population. The industry, if desired attention is paid by government at all levels, can successfully absorbs a large number of unemployed youths across the country, currently roaming about in search of unavailable jobs, through its chain of agro-allied industry; commercial feed and toll milling, poultry products processing, poultry marketing, veterinary pharmaceutical, hatchery operation and breeder farming. In addition, the industry if properly harnessed, can also serve as source of foreign earnings, complementing the crude oil (our main sources of foreign earnings presently), responsible for over 90% of our exports. Egg, a product of the industry, gives about 3.5g of the total 7.2g animal protein requires for individual dietary need per day. Again, broiler (table meat chicken) is the toast of every fast food outlets across the country. This is because chicken meat is cholesterol free! Compare to red meat like beef, mutton, pork, veal, venison, and others, which contains cholesterol (a chemical substance), responsible for the increasing rate of heart diseases amongst Nigerians in recent times.
CHALLENGES FACING THE NIGERIAN POULTRY INDUSTRY
The Nigerian poultry industry at the moment is bedeviled by enormous problems. Among which are lack of government funding, lack of credit facility, high cost of feeding ingredients, diseases, increasing cost of medications, marketing and lack of storage facility. Lack of government investments in the agricultural sector, particularly the poultry industry is the bane of the industry. This is due to government adherence to neo-liberal economic policies as dictated by world bank/IMF that forbid government direct investments and subsidies for the sector, leading to the collapse of farms owned by poor farmers across the country and the resultant lost of jobs, due to prohibitive cost of production. This made it possible for big farms like Obasanjo Farms Nig Ltd,Otta; Zartech Farms,Ibadan; CHI Ajanla Farms,Ibadan; Animalcare Services Konsult (Nig) Ltd ,Ogere, Ogun State; Zarm Poultry and FeedMill Industry Ltd, Ilemona, Kwara State;Sambawa Farms Nig Ltd , Kaduna, in the northern part of the country to dominate the poultry business, amassing huge profits in the process, to the detriment of poor farmers.
Another obstacle confronting the poultry industry in Nigeria is the inability of a large number of farmers particularly the poor ones to secure loans from both commercial and micro finance banks across the country. This is because most of these banks attach much conditionality that is beyond the reach of the farmers. Some of these conditions include; Collateral (landed properties), 25% interest rate, 3-6months moratoria, and other sundry charges, making access to loans practically impossible for poor farmers, despite the banks much vaunted farmer’s friendly agricultural loans in Nigeria. The government owned Nigerian Agricultural Cooperative and Rural Development Bank (NACRDB) across the country has not done better. The only exceptions to these rules are the rich local and multinational farms, which are connected to banks CEO’s and officials at the corridor of power. This was the lot of poultry farmers in Nigeria, before the current global economic crisis, that has led to the loss of 368billion naira of bank loans invested in stocks. In the coming periods, the industry will face serious crisis, because it will be much easier for the proverbial camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for poor farmers obtaining loans from banks. This is a sad commentary on government so-called small and medium scale entrepreneurship drive.
Infectious diseases are another major challenge to the industry, because of the economic importance of disease causing organisms like bacteria, virus, fungal and protozoan, which birds are susceptible to, bringing about devastating effects to both the flocks and the farmers. For instance, the outbreak of Avian Influenza otherwise known as bird flu, in 2005/2006,led to the death of over 1.5 million birds across the country. It will be recalled that large number of poor farmers lost their means of livelihood, when their flocks were destroyed by government without compensations, whilst the rich farms (Obasanjo’s, Sambawa among others) made fortune from both government and foreign donor agencies. Poultry farmers nationwide also suffered from other infections, like Newcastle disease, Avian coryza, infectious bursa disease, fowl cholera, fowl typhoid amongst others, which are equally deadly to the birds. In fact this writer lost over 2,000 birds to Newcastle disease in December 2008, which he is yet to recovered from! The government in the past used to take measures to prevent and control livestock diseases, through the establishment of research institutes across the country, like the National Veterinary Research Institute (NVRI), Vom, Plateau State, for the production of vaccines. But due to under funding of agriculture sector by successive governments, the institute could barely sustain itself let alone being able to produce enough vaccines to meet the growing needs of poultry farmers. The adverse effect of this is manifested in the growing rate of vaccine importations by rich farmers from other countries. The poor farmers patronize the importers, whose vaccines’ shelf life and cold chain has been altered, due to long storage, hence, the losses resulting from vaccination failures and associated diseases. This explains the losses suffered by this writer and many others poultry farmers across Nigeria.
High cost of feed ingredients is another death knell of the industry. The perennial scarcity occasioned by high cost of feed materials especially maize has been a recurring decimal in the poultry industry in Nigeria. This has resulted in large number of farmers closing shops, because of their inability to feed birds. In 2008, due to the global food crisis, the price of maize and other materials like Soya beans soar beyond the reach of poor farmers, leading to farm closure and the resultant job loses. The public outcry generated by these loses compelled the federal government through its ministry of agriculture and rural development, to release maize from the national strategic grains reserves. But due to its commitment to big profiteers, a large quantity of the maize went to big farmers, while members of the executive of Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) also benefited. Those poor poultry farmers who could not buy the product from PAN executives at the exorbitant price have to simply close down their farms. The remaining few farmers still struggle to survive all these aforementioned onslaughts are again constrained by marketing, leading to the perennial eggs glut suffered by farmers across the country.
THE WAY FORWARD
Flow from the foregoing analysis, it is obvious that the poultry sub sector of the economy is in dire need of attention. This need has been heightened by the present global financial crisis and economic recession. But to expect this government to revive the poultry industry in particular or the Nigerian economy in general on permanent basis at the face of plummeting international crude oil price, will be wishful thinking. This is because at the best of times when government at all levels (federal, state and local) were literally swimming in petro-dollars wealth; nothing concrete was done by the government to improve the economic well-being of the suffering majority, nor was attempt made to diversify the economy which is solely based on exportation of crude oil. Rather, the huge sums of money realized were either diverted through over bloated contracts, or looted outright by government officers.
The Minister of Finance, Dr Mansur Muhtar, at the inauguration of the new National Economic Management Team (NEMT) in Abuja, said “ the global financial crisis and economic downturn have impacted negatively on the environment in Nigeria. While we were able to weather the first round effects of the global crisis, subsequent deterioration in the global economic and financial environment has exposed our country to considerable shocks. We need to move speedily to reposition our economy to adequately respond to the accompanying global slowdown in a more comprehensive and holistic fashion. The Nigeria economy is at a critical junction and our success in effectively responding to the current global economic crisis would be vital to laying the foundation for a more diversified and resilient economy” (The Vanguard, Tuesday, February 3,2009). The implications of this verbose economic grandstanding by the minister is that, hard times awaits the already pulverized poverty stricken Nigerians, because there is going to be increase cut back on social services by the government, if nothing is done by the working people including farmers to defend themselves. So they must brace up for the challenges.
In the final analysis, this government like its counterpart in advanced capitalist economies cannot resolve the present global economic recession on permanent basis, so long the reign of capital remains supreme. Capitalism, the current world economic ideology, is a vicious circle replete with intermittent global economic crisis, global food crisis, global warming, environmental degredation, wars, unemployment, illiteracy, natural disasters, corruption, homelessness, and other social, political and economic ills. Therefore, there is need to break completely with this unjust system. Towards this end, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC), Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN), and other civil society organizations, must commence mass mobilization of workers, farmers, students, market men and women for a day of action to protest the poor living conditions of Nigerians and demand a break with the present economic system. Subsequently, this should evolve into forming mass working class political party, which will make nationalization of the major sectors of the economy including the poultry industry, its cardinal program, so as to plan the economy, through democratic control and management by workers, with a view to meeting the needs of all, against the profit motive of few rapacious individuals. Then can the economy and the poultry industry witness the desired growth.
Eko John Nicholas
08022634850
[email protected]
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