The Managing Director/CEO of FACCO West Africa Limited, Femi Adelayo, has identified modern equipment, automation and innovation as pathways to improve Nigeria’s poultry and livestock production in order to achieve self-sufficiency in food production.
He spoke with Daily Trust in Lagos at the Feed Industry Summit organised by the Feed Industry Practitioners Association of Nigeria (FIPAN) with the theme “Unlocking Nigeria’s Feed Industry’s Potential: Overcoming Challenges and Harnessing Opportunities.”
The summit focused on critical issues like feed raw materials, research and innovation, feed milling industry’ policies, among others.
Adelayo noted automation and mechanisation will not only help scale up production capacities, but also reduce human errors, increase competitiveness and by extension grow the economy.
“Modern equipment has greatly improved the production of poultry and livestock.
“Automation, innovation, mechanisation are very critical step points that can help, that will help and that has helped so many countries to develop.
“Look at some of our North African neighbours, see them having sometimes a poultry house of about 250,000 capacities in one farm. Those innovations end up driving down pricing, increasing competitiveness, more access to proteins, growing the economy and we will have a better country,” he said.
Adelayo explained that the FACCO West Africa Limited offers comprehensive equipment and automation solutions for livestock, poultry and agriculture production.
He said the company also provides poultry supply and solution including turnkey solutions for livestock, design and consultancy, grain storage and silos, mobile grain dryers; tractors, harvesters and other agricultural machinery, feed milling equipment, hammer mills, mixers and milling equipment for cereals.
He, therefore, called on operators of livestock and poultry businesses to leverage technology and innovation to automate their production processes to boost productivity.
The MD explained that the poultry and livestock equipment sector can be revitalised by having quality equipment, a proper plan, and access to funding for farmers who want to set up quality solutions.
“A lot of solutions now have become pretty substandard as such, you will find out that they can’t stand the test of time. And because people are trying to save some money here and there, they might go for things that are cheaper but not necessarily better or long lasting.
“So, access to funding, setting up quality livestock solutions, proper management services, extension workers, proper planning, interventions, availability of the right raw materials, maybe soya and all those things, are key factors that can help improve the livestock and by further extension the poultry sector,” Adelayo said.
The MD called on the government to redouble its intervention in the development of the livestock and poultry sector with respect to raw materials and feed production.
“We would like to have the federal, state and local government’s partnerships to ensure that we can reach the people with the quality innovation and automation services that we have,” he said.
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