Inside Unilorin’s N600m poultry farm project

After years of waiting, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has commissioned the N600 million University of Ilorin (Unilorin) poultry project. 

Sited on 30 hectares of land in Amoyo, Ifelodun Local Government Area of Kwara State, the project, conceptualised under the CBN-funded tertiary Institutions Poultry Revival Scheme, is specifically aimed for tertiary institutions to design and implement viable poultry projects that would culminate into a sustainable development of the country’s poultry industry. 

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A walk inside the farm exposes one to the huge potential of the project as a game changer in the poultry business and its agricultural value chain, especially in line with the expected benefit with the incorporating universities.

So far, the first set of birds, 17,000 layers that are already producing 25 crates of eggs daily with 500 target, 30,000 broilers, 8 broilers pens, which have the capacity to accommodate 5,000 birds, four layers pens, with total capacity of 23,000, 1000 birds per day, hatchery and a cold room with total capacity of 10 tonnes, are on ground.  

Also, there is a blast chiller that can chill about 500 birds for 46 hours, a feed mill that can produce 5 tonnes per hour and a cooling van with a capacity of 6.5 tonnes. The weekly processed boiler gives about 7.5 tonnes of meat, excluding other accessories like the head, leg, neck, gizzard, heart, liver and the intestine.

While the project has commenced with several activities and processes already taking place, there are concerns that universities coming on board, the CBN and other stakeholders need to be cognizant of.

Speaking on the project, the chairman of the Steering Committee of the Unilorin GGMax Poultry, Professor Mikhail Olayinka Buhari, said that the university had come this far is not a success story that should be taken for granted because of the bottlenecks, novelty, funding pattern and several other hurdles that were surmounted in getting the farm on track.  

He said the project had been structured in such a way that “nothing is wasted as far as poultry and its value chain is concerned.”  

“It is an integrated commercial poultry farm owned by the University of Ilorin but funded by the CBN in partnership with Zenith Bank. After this, it will later be broadened to include polytechnics and colleges of education with the requisite manpower, skills and other resources needed to successfully put up an enterprise like this.  

“We were all invited to put up a bankable proposal, but the University of Ilorin is the only tertiary institution considered for being able to actualise the vision of the CBN,” he added.

For the partnership not to be business as usual, the CBN insisted that the university set up a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV).

On the journey to the approval by the CBN, Buhari said that initially, 12 universities were invited, adding that the only thing that sets Unilorin apart was commitment and purposeful approach.

 “We quickly identified the steps to take and went all out to make sure the objective was realised. We had to knock on doors and open, as well as make leverages to ensure that we actualised the objective.   

“This was new to everybody, including the CBN. The vision was there but how to actualise it was not there; and we had to blaze the trail. We got the special purpose vehicle, which was made slightly difficult because of financial regulations domiciling our school fees account in a commercial bank, with all the assurances because the CBN cannot directly lend money to you.  

“The CBN is the banker and the accountant-general is firmly in charge of the shares, so we needed approval and a no-objection from the minister of finance. The only way we could guarantee that was to bring up an Irrevocable Standing Payment Order (ISPO). All these  took 18 months to get, and at the end, our resoluteness was rewarded,” he explained.

During the commissioning ceremony, the vice chancellor of the University of Ilorin, Professor Suleiman Age, pleaded with the CBN on the issue of the interest rate the loan was awarded, a plea the apex bank did not respond to. 

Narrating the issue further, Buhari said, “We took a N600m loan at a rate of 9 per cent, but before we could process the fund, the CBN had brought down the rate from 5 per cent and extended its validity by a year – February 2022 to February 2023. 

“Our appeal is for the CBN to consider extending the validity beyond February next year to allow us stabilise because so many other things we did not consider came into play, like the rise in inflation. 

“It became more difficult for us to meet our obligation to the lender, and then, given the overarching objective of this project, it is actually more important to ensure its success than to focus on the recovery of funds,” he noted.

For the remaining 11 universities which proposals have not been approved, and the 40 others the CBN said were still under consideration, the advice is for them to ask the right questions.

Buhari said, “I saw the good, the bad and the ugly of this country. Other institutions coming after us need to ask the right questions and persons to get over the daunting challenges the project faced.

Repayment capacity

In all of these, there are also concerns on the capacity to repay the loan. But Buhari dismissed such fears, saying the university was determined to succeed and open another vista of opportunities that would revolutionise the education and unemployment sectors, especially in agriculture.  

We are given over a year to construct and stabilise. Between now and February we have the opportunity to extend the scope. Nine per cent interest comes to about N13m monthly. But I must emphasise that processing 5,000 broilers weekly for sale without the accessories amounts to about N2m to N3m per cycle. By our calculation, we are supposed to run 8 cycles in about 40 days.”  

Other plans/benefits

Daily Trust on Sunday observed that there are 10 hectares of land at the back of the farm that has been used for cultivating maize and soybeans, which are direct raw materials for the production of feed. Plans are also on to use a vast portion of the over 150 acres of land in the university to grow these crops as raw materials for poultry and commercial purposes as a form of backwards integration. 

Also, production of day-old chicks by December is in the pipeline and conversion and production of powdered egg during the period of glut to save losses and enable very long time storage are on the table. 

The students will be made to get involved in a grower’s programme through this to afford them the opportunity to see first-hand, what they were taught in the classroom and serve as a veritable laboratory for lecturers’ research. This will further ensure that the country boasts of a viable parent stock model, especially after other universities come in.

Agribusiness

In this area, the university, through the project, is looking at production of manure/organic fertilisers aided by its manure dryer on the farm, intestines as feed for fish, making feather and blood from the chicken into meals for other animals like pigs to ensure that nothing is wasted. There are also plans to explore the possibility of how the farm can possibly impact the rice sector, which is highly cultivated in the state.  

N250m annual IGR for university  

With over 7.5 tonnes of pure meat to be pushed out weekly, it is expected that the poultry would play a major role in the area of food security, which will in turn help conserve foreign exchange, generate employment opportunity for the local economy with its present employment 70 employees and contribute over N250m to the university’s internally generated revenue (IGR) annually.

Buhari further said, “There is nothing we have at present that can bring in a tenth of that amount into the university’s coffers. We can use such funds for many other purposes.”  

Expansion/future plans 

For the management of the poultry, the plan, going forward, is to use up all the 30 hectares of land and even expand. But more importantly, the eventual building and relocation of the students’ dormitory and College of Agriculture of the university is the focus.   

For Gawati Adedayo Olugbenga, the Chief Operating Officer (COO), Unilorin GGMax Farm, who is also a graduate of the university, private people were brought in to differentiate it from public sector arrangement.  

“It has to pay back its loan, be profit-oriented and sustain itself. These are the key issues why we were brought in, having been in the private business for years. It is like giving back to the university. 

“Some of the challenges are that some people here have public and public mentally and we have to try and strike a balance as everybody has one goal, which is just to succeed.

 “For the price, this is a period of glut when not much is happening in terms of festivities. We don’t sell live chicken, but a processed one goes for N1,800. We have a standard cooling van that moves our products to Abuja, Lagos, and we are working on Port Harcourt market,” he added.  

On his part, Professor Alred Adegoke, the director, Consultancy Centre, University of Ilorin, the ISPO for the project, said a limited liability company was incorporated to achieve the purpose in line with CBN’s demand. He added that they had to make sure everything is in place and succeeds.  

“We technically own the farm. And we are giving them a target because it is not just about working but business-oriented. 

“Everything you see on this farm was done by direct labour to cut cost. We didn’t have to go along with the issue of the university procurement that would slow us down. We are hoping to replicate this in other areas of the university so that we can generate funds. The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has been on strike for the past seven months and the government is saying there is no money. This is a goldmine and a game changer in this country in terms of funding if it succeeds, and I hope it does,” he submitted.