Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) has revealed that Nigeria is now rated as number one egg-producing nation in Africa.
Speaking today, Friday, when he led a delegation of PAN on courtesy visit to acting President Yemi Osinbajo, Dr. Ayoola Oduntan said that presently poultry contributes 25 percent of the Agricultural Gross Domestic Product of the Nigerian economy amounting to N1.6 Trillion.
According to him, Nigeria is rated as the number one egg-producing nation in Africa, and number four poultry meat producer on the continent.
This was even as Professor Osinbajo, called for urgent measure to address challenges in the agricultural sub-sector, noting with regret that poultry industry had been contending with a number of challenges, including an outbreak of Avian Influenza which affected almost four million birds in 2015.
The acting President attributed the challenges to partly non-allocation of Foreign Exchange for the importation of needed machinery and other critical inputs, and high production costs in the industry.
“The poultry industry is a local industry that needs to be protected urgently.”
The Acting President said the industry should be a major plank of the agriculture sector and as such, the Buhari administration will ensure that it gets help regarding the challenges being faced by operators of the sub-sector.
He said that the federal government is now in the process of concluding decisions on specific lines of action targeted at the challenges facing the industry, a sub-sector that is said to generate over 14 million direct and indirect jobs in the country. [myad]
