As Nigeria makes efforts to diversify its revenue base away from oil, experts are making case for diverse opportunities in the agricultural sector.
One of such opportunities is pig farming. According to experts believe Nigerians are not tapping into the opportunity in this area because of ignorance and poor perception about pigs.
Apart from a breeding ground, which should be large enough, it is easy to start a piggery with N500, 000 to N1 million.
To start a piggery, you need healthy piglets, standard pens, quality feed and three to six workers, depending on the number of piglets available.
The biggest thing about pigs is that they reproduce in large numbers. Pigs can go between N15, 000 and N40, 000 depending on their size and weight, and one pig can easily reproduce up to 15 to 20 piglets. This is its biggest advantage.
Secondly, pigs can survive in any environment. Pigs are in high demand in China, Japan, India, Mexico, Canada and many parts of Asia. In 2015, United States exported porks (pig meat) worth U$4 billion; Germany, $4 billion; Spain: $3 billion, among others.
Live stock production grew by 1.23 percent in Q4 2016 from 0.76percent in Q3 2016, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) states in its Gross Domestic Q3 report.
The pig carcass yields a higher percentage of dressed meat and a higher proportion of edible parts. Pork is higher in energy then other meat. It is nutritious and tasty, as slaughter animals are comparably young. Pork is palatable and attractive, as it is tenderer than beef. A slaughtered pig can be more easily utilized; it does not require ageing or tenderizing.
The product can be smoke, salted, processed and stored otherwise, a smaller quantity becomes available at any time and causes less of a storage and keeping problem. The Pig “Carcass yields a high dressing percentage, more edible meat of greater nutritious value.
The salvage value of the breeding stock is very high. This means that pigs which have been used to produce several can still be sold at a relatively high price whenever they are to be sold out.
Pigs can be bred at any time of the year and goat that have to be bred at a particular time of the year. Pigs are efficient converter of industrial by-products and Agricultural wastes (including kitchen wastes) into pork.
Social and economic benefits derivable from the project are improvement of the economic well being of the sponsor, generation of employment opportunities, and increase in the level of protein consumption thereby improving the level of our health care delivery system.
Technical Aspect
The project involves design and construction of pig pens and acquisition of foundation stock of pigs (breeders).
The stock female pigs are to undergo intensive feeding and breeding for the purpose of child bearing. The young ones are to be raised at the fattening house to market sizes where they will be sold to prospective buyers.
Financial Information
To establish a 50 sow unit commercial pig farm, the breakdown of the costs are given as follows:
Pre-Investments : N200,000
Housing : N3,000,000
Breeders (55 at N30,000) : N1,650,000
Feeding : N2,000,000
Utilities/Others : N500,000
Total N7,350,000
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Note: The scale could be lower or higher depending on the financial strength of prospective investor
Profitability
A 50 sow unit farm should be able to produce 500 pigs annually. A matured pig can be sold as high as N30,000. This translates to N15 million as gross income. The Cost of maintaining the farm is put at a maximum of N7.5 million. This leaves annual net income of N7.5 million. This project is recommended for serious minded Nigerian investors.
Olumakinde Oni
