Stakeholders Call On Government To Restrict Import Of Poultry Products

Former Nigerian President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo made the call at the 2nd Nigerian Poultry Summit organized by the Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN), yesterday in Abuja.

Chief Obasanjo who is also a poultry farmer and the grand patron of Poultry Association of Nigeria, the national organization representing all poultry farmers, stated that the sector has the greatest potential to create millions of jobs and needs to be safeguarded by all levels of government.

 “countries make sure that they pay attention at the government level, the private sector level, to the sustenance of poultry as an industry as something that will give job opportunities, alleviate poverty and create wealth,” 

He noted that the poultry industry is a major source of nutrition security in many countries and Nigeria shouldn’t be an exception.

emphasizing that government must “not open the market for others to come and dump their products here.”

According to him, governments at all levels need to figure out how to handle the industry’s problems with drugs and feeds, which have become more costly as a result of the naira’s decline in value relative to the dollar.

On his part the Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security Dr. Aliyu Abdullahi said government is looking into some of the demands by Poultry farmer in ensuring sustenance of the poultry industry.

“Only recently, the Ministry had a meeting with the Executive Officers of the Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) in response to their request for immediate attention in the poultry industry to save it from imminent collapse”

“We are still putting in place measures to meet up with their requests including the possibility of import duty waiver, VAT exemption on the importation of feed grade maize and soya-bean as well as on the issue of the recent lifting of the forex restriction on importation of poultry and poultry products”

Dr. Abdullahi called on research institutes to rise up to the occasion by focusing efforts on coming up with maize varieties for livestock feed only, This he said would reduce the demand pressure on the ordinary maize used for food and other purposes by human.