At the just concluded poultry submit in Abuja, farmers were excited as one of the breeders from the National Animal Production Research Institute located at Shika, Zaria in Kaduna State, said they were working on a new breed of broilers that would stand the test of time.
Elizabeth Adejoh-Ubani, a poultry researcher with over 15 years of experience at the institute involved in the development of the new breed, said farmers in the country would not have to go out of the shores of Nigeria to buy day-old broilers as the new breed could “stand the taste of time.”
The institute, which is well known for its work on the development of the “Shika” Brown of chicken, is set to add the new breed of broilers to its stock of birds. However, stakeholders hope the new breed would not suffer lack of fund for multiplication like the Shika brand, which affected widespread adoption and access by farmers.
The poultry breeder, however, said the ongoing broiler project would change the dynamics in the industry and increase farmers’ access to good broiler breed the c“Research is going on in broilers, and I am proud to say that I am one of the researchers doing the broiler project. Honestly, you will not have to go out of the country to import day-old chicks.
“We are working on a breed of broilers we believe would be able to stand the test of time,” Mrs Adejoh-Ubani said.
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Many years ago, the institute registered the Shika Brown but the breed did not have wider penetration despite being tested across the six geopolitical zones with good results.
Although some farmers saw the news as a welcome development, others expressed concern that poor funding, which characterised research institutes in the country, may make the broiler project not any different from the famous Shika Brown breeds.
The breeder, who said the breed could be available soon if the funds were released by the government, pleaded with the federal government to fund the project accordingly, citing the successful breeding of the Shika Brown chicken project.
The Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Dr Abdullahi Sabi Aliyu, who expressed sadness over the situation with the Shika Brown, said the current government was working to change the narrative, adding that the “issue of political will is no longer an issue.”
He said, “About Shika Brown, I was in active service and in the middle of that subject matter, but it is also a reminder of some of the sad narratives of our Nigerian story. The NAPRI did their best for 15 years, but unfortunately, the Shika Brown did not receive patriotic welcome from Nigerians; that is why it is nowhere.
“I am saying this because in 1997 when it was released after all the multi-locational trials in six geopolitical zones, it showed that it could perform well, but it required time for people to continue to use it for it to continue to receive research attention, but unfortunately, it never happened,” he stated.
Dr Abdullahi emphasised that the country would do more to ensure the survival of the breed instead of watching the many years of efforts of research to go down.
“My own understanding is that if it were some countries, at the time the Shika Brown came out, it would have received a national security order for protection,” he said.
The minister, however, expressed doubt over the purity of the genetic resources, which are maintained for the purpose of breeding.
“Today, I am not sure if the germplasm of the parent stock is still in its purity. We are not sure because of neglect,” he said.