By Meletus EZE
Stakeholders in the poultry business in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have decried high cost of day-old chicks and called for the government intervention to stabilise the market.
Some of the stakeholders, said on Saturday in Abuja, blamed the hike on the limited supply of chicks in the market.
Mrs Sara Dikko, a dealer in day-old chicks, said the increase was over 100 per cent, compared to the price in 2017.
She said that a carton of day-old chicks, containing 52 chicks currently sold for between N17,500 and N20,000 as against between N8,000 and N10,000 in 2017.
“It is really a serious challenge because farmers are not finding it easy and a lot of them have been forced out of the farm.
“We had to, sometimes, return money to farmers who booked for day-old chicks from us because we could not get supply from hatcheries.
“It is a big problem because there is going to be an acute shortage of chicken during Christmas and New Year celebration,’’ she said.
Mr Sylvester Abraham, a dealer in poultry feeds, said the high cost of day-old chicks had affected his business negatively, compared to the situation in 2017.
“We sold an average of a trailer load of feed weekly in 2017 with many costumers queuing up to load.
“At a time in 2017, we were running out of stock because of high demand.
“As you can see now, only a few farmers are coming to buy and we cannot boost of finishing a trailer load in two weeks.
“The reason is that many farmers were not able to afford the price of the chicks,’’ Abraham said.
Mrs Patience Ijeh, a poultry farmer, called for the intervention of relevant government authorities to stabilise the cost of day-old chicks.
She said the call was to forestall the likelihood of eggs and chicken scarcity in the country.
Ijeh said it was time for the government to regulate hatchery business in the country.
