Nigeria has the second highest burden of stunted children in the world, with a national prevalence rate of 43.6 percent of children under the age of five, the United Nations Independent Children Education Fund (UNICEF), said in a 2018 Global Nutrition report.
In nominal terms, the report noted that an estimated 14.3 million children in Nigeria suffer from severe acute malnutrition (SAM), but only two out of every 10 children affected is currently reached with treatment while about seven percent of women of childbearing age also suffer from acute malnutrition.
This high rate of malnutrition according to the report, tends to pose significant public health and development challenges for the country. Stunting, in addition to an increased risk of death, is also linked to poor cognitive development, a lowered performance in education and low productivity in adulthood – all contributing to economic losses estimated to account for as much as 11 percent of a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
To change the narrative of the burden of malnutrition in the country, especially in women and children, Ayoola Oduntan, group managing director of Natnudo Foods, pioneered a simple but transformative technique to increase the nutritional value of households in rural communities through the Noiler bird initiative.
The Noiler bird initiative is a rural development effort that is targeted at reducing poverty especially among women by improving their quality of life through the rearing of the birds for chicken and egg production.
Since it flagged off in 2010, the initiative has empowered thousands of women across various rural communities in the country.
Oduntan’s strategy was to get the Noiler birds to households of rural families across the country, in order to help in significantly increasing protein consumption in rural communities while generating employment, and improving the livelihood of women involved in the venture of rearing the birds as well as in transportation.
For him, because the initiative is directed towards women, children can easily get the needed daily protein requirements for their development. Furthermore, women will also be able to generate income to support their households through the sales of eggs and chicken.
“We saw this problem and we started the research and development into Noiler without knowing its destination but by early 2010, it was clear that we have a product that could change the face of malnutrition or under nutrition in Africa and that product was name Noiler to honour Nigeria,” Oduntan said in a recent interview.
Noiler is a rural poultry bird popular among the rural population. It is what some call the dual-purpose birds that survive in backyards of village households, eating waste from the kitchen and from the farm with a little supplementary feeding if it is available, Oduntan explained. It will produce four times the number of eggs of the indigenous birds and it will grow two-three times the size.
In the past, there have been other breeding companies in Nigeria particularly in the universities that have come up with similar initiatives but research institutes mainly did these. For instance, the Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta ( FUNAAB) developed the FUNAAB Alpha breed; Ahmadu Bello University Zaria had the Shika Brown breed.
Oduntan noted the fact that the bird grows so well, produces well, and could survive in the backyard of the average village household is what makes it the genius.
The initiative made the firm to become the only commercial company that is privately owned to carry out such research work. The development of Noiler also made the firm the only pure line breeding company in Africa.
According to Oduntan, everything that has to do with the Noiler including the pure lines, grandparent stocks and the parent stocks was researched and developed in Nigeria. “We did not need a dime to import Boiler,” he said.
The Noiler has found its way to five different West African countries, which has helped in becoming a foreign exchange earner for the country.
He said in other to get the birds to every nook and crannies in country, the company got representatives who educated the rural dwellers on the benefits of the initiative.
“We have no fewer than 42 graduates alongside six veterinary doctors who are going across states showing rural dwellers videos on the impact that eating protein would have in their lives, so as to encourage them to take up the initiative by eating also and not just selling. We are taking the message to the grass roots level,” Oduntan told Businessday.
Across Africa, the Noiler bird initiative has become well known and has gotten the buyin of both government and non- governmental organizations. In 2019, the international livestock institute in Ethiopia, shared a research work that compared Noiler birds with breeds from other initiatives across the world. The Noiler came tops, positioning as the number one dual-purpose bird in terms of performance.
Since the inception of the initiative in 2016 through the first quarter of 2019, the company has sold over 12 million of the Noiler birds. In 2018, it sold 6 million and this year it is targeting about 10 million of the birds, Oduntan said.
The firm has also partnered with various states governments in ensuring that more of the country’s population benefit from the initiative. In 2017, the firm through the Noiler bird initiative partnered with the Edo state government to empower rural women in state.
Oduntan shares the school of thought that the success of a person is either limited or expanded by the success of those around them.
“If you are successful alone and surrounded by unsuccessful people, then you are actually not successful. So for me, it gives me great concern to look around and see the high rate of poverty, or to be told that Nigeria has one of the highest mortality rate in the world, high maternal mortality and also to see that 40 percent of our children are malnourished or have a stunted growth,” he said.
The group Oduntan presides over has four subsidiaries; Amo Byng Nigeria Limited which produces animal feeds, cattle feeds and fish feeds; Amo farm Sieberer Hatchery Limited that produces day-old chicks, including Amo pullets, Amo Crocker, Amo broiler and Noiler. The other two are Diversay Solutions LTD that is into the local production of veterinary pharmaceuticals and disinfectants and; Natnudo foods, a subsidiary in charge of producing ready to eat chicken, beef, eggs and fish.
Ayoola Oduntan was at a time, National President of the Poultry Association of Nigeria, a position he held for four and half years between 2014 and 2018.
In recognition for his outstanding performance in positioning the country’s business landscape at the forefront of global business concerns, Oduntan was among other business leaders who were given special recognitions at the 2019 Businessday Leadership awards.
Oduntan was recognized as CEO of the most diversified business group of the year while one of his subsidiaries, Amo Farm Sieberer hatchery was named the Agribusiness of the Year.
