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Corn price hike forces poultry farms into closure – PAN

The Poultry Association of Nigeria said on Monday that poultry farms across the country are currently closing due to the continued rise in the price of maize, a major feed for birds in the business.

According to PAN, if the government did not intervene to safeguard the industry, Nigeria's poultry subsector would fail.

"The poultry business in Nigeria is currently on the verge of catastrophic collapse if immediate action is not taken without further delay," the group said in a statement on Monday.

"We know the government has proclaimed a state of emergency over the country's food security crisis, but the situation of the poultry industry calls for an urgent intervention to save the industry from total collapse."

According to the statement, farmers are abandoning their poultry farms since it is no longer financially viable to feed the birds and run the farms due to the dramatic spike in maize prices and the near absence or unavailability of the product.

Furthermore, study revealed that when maize imports fell by 97.91%, the price of eggs, a daily source of protein for many Nigerians, rose by about 118.34%.

The National Bureau of Statistics stated that the price of a single medium-sized farm egg rose from N40.84 in May 2020 to N89.17 in May 2023. Maize, a crucial ingredient in chicken diets, declined to $1.82 million by the end of 2022 from $87.08 million at the end of 2020, according to International Trade Centre data.

The CBN added maize to its list of products forbidden from receiving foreign exchange in 2020, causing the Federal Government to impose a ban on maize imports into the country.

Despite Nigeria's restrictions on maize imports, the country's local crop has suffered as a result of ongoing banditry in the north.

Because maize accounts for more than half of feed, the cost of feed is growing dramatically as a result of maize prices. Maize prices are growing as a result of severe constraints on local production.

Akintade Akintayo, a veterinarian and additional farmer, indicated that the fundamental reason for the increase in egg prices was the cost of food. He resented the fact that the price of New Hope feeds, a poultry feed, had risen in the last two weeks.

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