PAN seeks compensation for farmers with Avian Influenza-ravaged farms

POULTRY farmers under the aegis of the Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) has called on the Federal Government to urgently compensate poultry farmers whose farms were ravaged by the outbreak of avian influenza, popularly known as bird flu.

South-West Chairman of PAN, Gideon Oluleye, made the call during this year’s Nigeria Poultry show in Abeokuta, Ogun State.

He said the urgent compensation is necessary so that the farmers will remain in business as lot of them have been out of business since the incidence, stressing that the compensation is necessary for the farmers, to alleviate their sufferings and save the poultry industry from imminent collapse.

Oluleye while lamenting the huge losses recorded by farmers during the outbreak, noted that hundreds of farmers lost their means of livelihood while several millions of naira were also lost.

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To help farmers grow their businesses and also contribute to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country, Oluleye called on the Federal Government, through the Ministry of Agriculture and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to make more funds available for farmers.

“The poultry industry is a subsector of the Nigerian economy that provides direct and indirect employment to over 25 million people. As a result of this, we are urging the Nigerian government, through the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and other levels of government and the CBN to give more funding to the sector, as the sector can generate huge employment opportunities for the jobless youths and earn foreign exchange for the country.”

While speaking further, the PAN Southwest Chairman added, “Other reasons why the government must fund this sector the most are; the current built-in-inflation within the economy that has pushed up the cost of inputs, climate change, dwindling economy, internal security; and the Ukraine-Russian war, which has further taken its toll on the poultry subsector of the country.

“All levels of government and the CBN should therefore budget more funding to the sector and subsidise the major inputs – maize and soya much more than they have been doing before and grant more loans in the long term to farmers in order to protect the sector from imminent collapse.”