The Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN), Lagos chapter, has called for an even spread of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) grain intervention across all states and regions in the country.
The Chairman of the association in Lagos, Mr Godwin Egbebe, made this call in an interview in Lagos on Thursday.
While lauding the efforts of the CBN in ensuring price stability in the sector, Egbebe said it was pertinent that the intervention should be spread across all states in the country for its impact to be felt.
“We are aware of and grateful for the recent 27,000 tonnes of maize intervention of the CBN to help stabilise prices in the poultry sector.
“This intervention is very timely and will definitely address prices of poultry produces favourably especially in the South-west region of the country.
“However, the intervention will cater for the big players in the South-west region of the country alone. So all other poultry farmers outside the South-West are complaining of not benefiting from the intervention,” he said.
According to Egbebe, the farmers in the other regions are of the opinion that the intervention should be spread across the country and not limited to the South-west region alone.
“That is the issue we want the CBN to address so that the impact of the intervention will be felt in every state of the country.
“We want the CBN to do more interventions in the poultry sector, so it can reach other states and regions in the country,” Egbebe said.
He noted that such interventions will help frustrate the middlemen in the sector as predicted by the CBN. The last intervention really eased down things for poultry farmers while it lasted.
“The only difference between this intervention and the last is that they increased the current price as against the price it was sold to us last time. From N150,000 per ton, they are now selling to us at N170,000 per ton,” he said.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has finalised plans to distribute another 50,000 metric tonnes of maize from its strategic maize reserve (SMR) to 12 major producers as part of its Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP).
