Poultry farmers laud FG’s ban on chicken importation, enjoy market boost

Poultry farmers laud FG’s ban on chicken importation, enjoy market boost

Poultry farmers in Ilorin said on Tuesday that the ban on chicken importation by the Federal Government has increased their market.

Some farmers, who spoke separately in Ilorin, expressed delight as demand for their chicken increased following the ban of chicken importation.

One of the poultry farmers, Mr Tomilola Idowu, whose farm is located in Olunlade area in Ilorin, told said that he witnessed increase in demand on his broilers.

Idowu said few years ago that he used to beg people to patronise his farm.

He said the government has done well to encourage poultry farmers, saying that the ban on imported chicken has forced large numbers of customers to patronise them.

“Since the ban on importation of turkey, I now witness a huge crowd who are now interested in my broilers trooping into my poultry farm day in day out.

“We, the poultry farmers benefit a lot from that government policy as we feel encouraged and enjoyed the way our customers now settle for the domestic products instead of preference for the imported,’’ he said.

Another farmer, Mrs Iyabo Abiona described the government ban on imported chicken as a “blessing in disguise,’’ saying that every poultry farmers now feel like a king as demand has increased for the livestock products.

According to Abiona, she is forced to increase his poultry pen due to high patronage by the customers in order to meet up with customers’ demand.

“Before I use to raise like 200 to 300 broilers but now I am happy that I have like 400 to 500 broilers inside my poultry pen and I have customers that always come for it.

“I sell to hotels, beer parlour joints and private individuals as they prefer to buy the home raised boilers since there is no more foreign alternative chicken,” she said.

Also, Mr Suleiman Adebayo in Sango, Ilorin, said most poultry farmers in the country were encouraged to do more, as they felt grateful to the government for prohibiting chicken importation.

“We are favoured with the government policies as everybody now enlarge his farm just to meet demands.

“Though there are some financial challenges but we are still trying to satisfy our customers for good,” he said.

Another poultry farmer, Mr Wasiu Usman said many Nigerians prefer investing in poultry farm since the government has encouraged them with the ban on importation.

“As you can see almost every house now has poultry farm where they rear broilers because we make huge profit in the business. Yes it is stressful but the return worth the stress,” said Wasiu.

Wasiu, however, called on the Federal Government to encourage students, unemployed graduates at all levels to go into agricultural practice.

He explained that agriculture could be used to reduce unemployment rate in the country.

Source: NAN

Photo Credit: Google