By Newslineglobal
Poultry farmers under the aegis of Nigeria Poultry Association, have appealed to Federal Government and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to come to their aid ,to save their business from total collapse.
The group lamented that Federal Government’s monetary policy of naira redesign has brought untold hardship on them and their investments across the nation particularly in the Southwest.
Southwest chairman of the association, Rev. Gideon Oluleye who made the appeal in a media briefing, said though the farmers are not against the policy, its timing and implementation strategy has caused devastation on their business..He said that a lot of farms have already collapsed; others are running at half capacity while many will soon close down if the government fails to intervene.
“We are yet to recover from the negative impact of COVID 19 when CBN brought another hardship on farmers through the policy of naira redesign. As we speak, over 15 to 20 million crates of eggs are in the economy looking for buyers., ”Oluleye said.
He added that the loses incurred by farmers were enormous.Oluleye said to save the poultry subsector of the economy which generates about six per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) from total collapse, the federal and state governments with CBN and other agencies of government must rise up and intervene.
“Mop up of about 15 – 20 million crates of eggs and chicken unsold in the economy right now to ameliorate the losses of the farmers. These products should be used in feeding the people in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps and all our correctional centres all over the country.This will go a long way in absolving some of the eggs and chicken meat from the farmers.
“We are also pleading with the federal, states and the CBN to intervene now in subsidizing major inputs particularly maize and soya much more than they have been doing before. This will also help in ameliorating the negative impact of the naira redesign policy of the government on the farmers.
” A lot of farmers are running on loans and as a result of this crisis, they could not meet their loan obligation any more. We want the CBN and the Federal Government to help in defraying part of the loan and in some cases out right cancellation of the loan. This will enable farmers to recover and save the sector from collapsing.
“Let the Federal Government constitute a committee that will begin the process of mopping up all unsold eggs and chicken meat due to naira redesign policies as these eggs are already going bad. A situation where a single farmer has a hundred thousand crates of eggs unsold in the farm now, the value of which is over two hundred million. Mopping up these eggs and chicken meat now, will be a good measure in preventing the sector from imminent collapse,” he said.