The Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN), Lagos State chapter, has urged the Federal Government to assist the sector to ease production cost in order to boost local egg production.
The chairman of PAN in Lagos, Mr Mojeed Iyiola, who made the call in an interview with journalists ahead of the 2023 International World Egg day tomorrow, said without that, poultry farmers may have nothing to celebrate in the near future.
World Egg day is annually celebrated on the second Friday of October.
Iyiola noted that due to difficulties faced in the sector, local farmers may not be able to join the rest of the world in the celebration of the World Egg Day.
“As the World Egg Day approaches, we do not know how long we may be able to continue the tradition.
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“There may be a halt in the production of eggs locally due to the increased production costs we face.
“We are not producing as much as we used to in earlier years due to the difficulties faced in the sector locally.
“The only way we can continue and also increase the production of egg is to ease the cost of production in terms of feed.
“We are appealing to the government to grant us as an association the license to import maize and soya so as to ease production costs,” the chairman told NAN.
According to him, soya and maize are the major components of any poultry feed meal.
“If we do not have these components in the feed, apart from the birds dying, they will stop laying eggs entirely.
“We want the government at all levels to come to our aid, as most poultry farms are closing up.
“The poultry sector on its own contributes a large percentage to employment in the agric sector.
“If we are no longer in business, in the near future Nigerian poultry farmers may not be able to join the rest of the world to celebrate World Egg Day,” Iyiola said.
He said the association would be distributing free eggs to residents across the zones in the state.
“As our tradition, we will be giving free eggs across our zones, to residents as our way of giving back to society.
“Although, we may not give as much as we did in previous years.
“However, we still want to encourage more people to eat eggs due to its nutritional and health benefits to human health,” he said. (NAN)
