By Tony Obiechina, ABUJA
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has initiated a programme to boost poultry production in the country and some Nigerian Universities have been selected as part of the pilot team to run a University-based Poultry Revival Programme.
It is estimated that over 1.2 million MT of poultry meat is smuggled into Nigeria from Benin Republic by some unscrupulous Nigerians.
At a meeting with a select group of university dons and agriculture research institutes in Abuja on Monday, the CBN Governor Mr. Godwin Emefiele assured them that lack of access to low cost, long tenured finance, which though is not peculiar to the poultry industry will be resolved by the CBN.
Emefiele represented by the Deputy Governor Economic Policy Mr Joseph Nnanna told the group that among other interventions, the CBN has recently financed the pioneer egg-powder production company in Nigeria to the tune of N2 billion under the Differentiated Cash Reserve Requirement-Real Sector Support Facility (DCRR-RSSF) window.
The CBN Governor noted that the University-based Poultry Revival Programme hopes to achieve the following objectives: Produce chicken meat and egg to reduce importation and close the existing demand and supply gap; Raise a new crop of agropreneurs in modern poultry production; Provide infrastructure that would support the sustainable production of poultry; and Reduce pressure for foreign exchange demand through import substitution by local poultry production.
This partnership Emefiele said has become imperative because the poultry sub- sector contributes about 25% of Agricultural GDP to the Nigerian economy with a current net worth of about N1.6 trillion.
The chicken population he revealed “is about 165 million which produce approximately 650,000MT and 300,00MT of eggs and meat respectively. The demand situation is estimated at over 200 million birds, while the demand for eggs and meat are about 790,000MT and 1,500,000MT respectively, thus leaving a huge demand gap which unfortunately, is met by smuggling.”
The CBN he said is relying on the University based poultry production model because the universities “have the existing Infrastructure, experience and human assets to enable production at reduced cost and in a competitive manner.”
To support the universities and research institutions, the CBN Governor said the apex bank has asked for “information on the capacity of your poultry pens, hatcheries, feed mills, size of crop farm and number of tractors for grains production, commercially viable and bankable business plan; including processing facility as well as any other information that would enrich your participation in the programme.”
He said the CBN has “structured this Programme to ensure that they can be accessed by those who need them the most and are ready to operate their facilities in a commercially viable manner.”
In order to ensure the attainment of the programme’s goals, the CBN he said “would be committing considerable human, material, and financial resources to monitoring both the disbursement and utilization of these funds in a robust and verifiable manner.”
Participating institutions will also be required to submit periodic returns on disbursements as well as an analysis of the impacts of the Fund they received. The CBN will also undertake regular on and off-site checks to ascertain veracity of the reports received.
Speaking to journalists at the end of the meeting, President of Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) Mr. Ezekiel Ibrahim commended the CBN for the poultry intervention which he said “is good for poultry and will help reduce funding gap.”
He however lamented that there are a lot of challenges in the poultry sector and pleaded with the CBN that while 9% intertest rate is good, “it could be better if it is reduced to 5%.”
