TADE MAKINDE reports that expensive rice and poultry may prevent many families from experiencing a jolly Yuletide.
IT’S Christmas season once again but the bells are not jingling as they should. Sure there are Christmas decorations here and there but the excitement is shallow. Father Christmas is making the children happy to some extent, giving presents their parents had paid for but which they thought were for free.
Only the parents could tell how much financial leverage they need to make their homes joyful for the Christmas festivities. Unfortunately prices of foodstuffs and poultry which are traditional season specialties are hitting the rooftop and out of reach of many.
Recently the national president of Maize Association of Nigeria (MAAN), Pastor Tunji Adenola, raised the alarm that poultry farms across the country are closing down due to scarcity of maize which has in turn led to high cost of feed.
Oluwaseyi Odeyemi, a poultry farmer, used to share his poultry products with family and friends at Christmas until five years ago when the prices of feed began a steady rise. With the astronomical increase in the prices of poultry feeds, Odeyemi has been forced to gradually stop his charity.
By this time last year, he had sold almost 300 chickens and over 100 turkeys at N3,500 and N7,500 each and respectively. This year, things are not that rosy as sales have been poor due to high cost of feed.
“This year, I have sold more turkeys than chickens, but altogether, I haven’t sold 150 units of both,” he lamented, adding that of the less than 150 units of fowls he had sold thus far, 70 per cent is turkey.
“Many people are now buying female turkeys which sell for between N3,500 and N4,000. Though a little below what I sell my big chickens for (N5,000), many of them do it for prestige. They want their neighbours to know that they have upgraded from chicken to turkey,” he said.
Why?
The rising cost of feed has contributed majorly to the high prices of turkeys and chickens in the country. “That should be expected,” said Mr Ade Fasehun, a crop farmer in Osun State. Last year, the maize, cassava and watermelon grower warned that this would happen as many farmers preferred animal production to crop.
“The high number of chicken raisers is not helping matters. Even those who know nothing about chickens are now in the business just because others are making money from it.
“Because many people are doing animal farming, unemployed youths saw farming as an escape route from joblessness and most of them who wanted to make easy money delved into poultry, not even piggery or rabbit. None, however, thought of crop farming, where the bulk of animal feeds come from. They want to sell the eggs, fowls, etc, forgetting that turkeys and chickens eat maize mostly.
“We eat the maize, just as brewing companies, who have the money buy grains for beer production, and several other manufacturing companies that use maize. At the end, poultry farmers get the smallest quantity of maize, a major ingredient in poultry feeds. That is one of the reasons why prices of poultry products will continue to increase,” he told Sunday Tribune.
Mr Odeyemi says it costs an average of N2,600 to feed a chicken from day old to point of sale; three or four months maximum. Factoring in the cost of drugs, providing heat, including mortality, would bring the price of a chicken to about N3,000.
“When you sell at N3,000, you make a profit of N400 or N500. Now, I sell my male turkeys at N10,000, females at N4,000, and people are buying it while only a few are buying chickens even at between N3,000 and N5,000,” he stated.
Rice too
Rice, another staple food love by millions of Nigerians for festive season has also become very expensive. For almost three years now, the price has been oscillating between N12,000 and N20,000. Not only has the outright ban of its importation contributed to the rising price, the non-availability of the much promised local rice in commercial quantity is yet to be seen after two years.
Last year, the hoopla that heralded the introduction of the much-hyped LAKE rice has not drawn much attention this year because it was like a drop in the ocean. Many Lagos residents were not able to get the rice to buy.
“It (the rice) was quickly sold out at N9,000. For me, I have told my wife and children that they shouldn’t expect much this year. If fish and semo is what I can afford this Christmas, that is what they will have. I am tired of struggling to live,” Mr Richard Olaiya, a Lagos resident, told Sunday Tribune.
Adekoya Eniola a foodstuffs seller at Bode market, Molete, Ibadan was moody when Sunday Tribune got to her shop. Obviously, market is dull for her. She can’t understand why the price of rice is going up by the day.
“Rice is expensive, same with groundnut oil; we don’t know why rice is as expensive as it is now. After all, in October, the price of rice was still fair. We sold a bag of rice at the price of N12,500 or N12,400. The next thing we heard was that the border had been closed and we don’t know why, which is a lie. So why are they now selling a bag of rice to us at N13,500 or N14,000?” she moaned, while also complaining about the increasing price of groundnut oil.
Eniola is apprehensive that from the cost of N13,700 the price of rice could jump to N14,000. “The price is just unstable,” she explained, noting that the price of rice so far for this year is better because last year it sold for N19,000.
“There is a lot of difference because last year we sold a bag of rice at N19,000. Last year I would say I sold more of flour than rice because people resorted to amala. People are buying rice but not as much as they are supposed to. So, I would say this year’s price is kind of fair,” she said.
A poultry seller at the same Bode market, Gbadebo Damilola told Sunday Tribune that things are already getting expensive more than a week before Christmas.
“For now chicken is N4,500 and turkey N11,000, and the way things are going now, it’s definitely going to get more expensive because Christmas is not here yet and we are already selling layers for N1,600 whereas before, we sold layers for N1,300 and breeder is now N4,500 though it was N2,000 before now,” he said.
What some people are buying for Christmas
What then are people resorting to? Damilola told Sunday Tribune that buyers now go for guinea fowl, which goes for between N1,500 and N2,000.
Another poultry seller at Oja Oba market, Ibadan, Adijah Akinlabi is not happy that customers are not coming. She blames the government for shortage of money in circulation.
“The government is not being fair to us; it’s rare for us to have two buyers a day. The government should not let us go hungry, there is poverty everywhere,” she said.
Salary earners are the worst hit as their take home has not been regular. In Oyo State, for example, there were reports that the state government promised to pay two months arrears but for now only one month has been paid which was about two weeks ago. They are afraid that they may not receive another pay until after Christmas at the earliest.
Olanrewaju Adeboye, a civil servant, told Sunday Tribune that he has not been paid. “The government only paid us the ones (salary) they have been owing us for last year; so if we have not been paid how do they expect us to buy food stuff and take care of our family.
“We heard that the government is planning on paying two months. Well, we will be very happy if the government can help us, because it’s been too long they have paid us last,” he said.
Though he is a Muslim, Adeboye said he has accepted his fate and would make do with whatever comes his way, adding: “Well, we have accepted that God will help us. I am a Muslim, so I know God will do His best for us, whatever we have with us we will use.”
Though it is one week before Christmas there is hope that things may get better especially if state governments make workers happy even if prices of things remain on the high side.
—Additional report from TIMILEHIN DARAMOLA, TIMILEHIN OREKUNRIN and PELUMI TIAMIYU.
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