Despite the huge potentials in Nigeria’s poultry industry, the $917 million (N330bn) chicken meat market, a segment of the industry, is still struggling to grow as smuggling of imported chicken products continues to find its way into the country’s markets in high volumes.
Industry estimates state that about 1.2 million metric tons (mmt) of poultry products are smuggled into Nigeria yearly, mainly from Brazil and Asia. Nigeria has placed a ban on the importation of poultry products, but this has not been effective and made no real impact on actual foreign imports.
As a result, the industry has continued to suffer huge losses owing to their inability to sell off their chicken products, which experts say is a major setback to Federal Government diversification drive through the sector.
“The fact is obvious, smuggling is on the increase and this is what is responsible for the low sales farmers are experiencing across the country,” Onallo Akpan, director-general, Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN), said in a telephone response.
“With the economic downturn, Nigerian prefers buying the imported chicken meat than the locally produced ones because they are cheaper. This is because in Europe and Asia farmers access loans at lower interest rate, get indirect support from their government and they have the infrastructure to aid production, this makes their production cost lower than ours,” Akpan said.
He noted that the high cost of inputs such as feeds was also a major reason farmers production cost had increased in recent years, saying a ton of maize was now being sold for N110,000 while sorghum for N170,000, a key component in poultry feeds.
According to Global Poultry Site, Nigeria produced 285,000 metric tons of chicken meat in 2013, and it is expected to grow by 5 percent yearly.
This means that in 2016, Nigeria’s chicken meat production would had reached 330,000 metric tons. The average price of a kilogram of chicken meat in the country is N1,000 (wholesale), so a ton cost N1 million.
Multiplying N1 million by 330,000mt will give us N330 billion ($917m).
A visit to some local retail stores in Mile 12 Market shows that a kilogram of local chicken meat sells for N1,600 while a kilogram of imported frozen chicken sells for N1,200.
“The volume of chicken meat imported into the country has been on the rise and has led to the low demand of local chicken products,” another top official of the Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN), who did not want his name mentioned on print, said.
“As we speak, in my farm we have about N2.5 billion frozen chicken in our cold room with no buyer in sight. If we the big players are finding it difficult to sell our chicken meat then imagine what the smaller farms are experiencing.
“This is a threat to all the jobs the industry has generated in the last two years, because if this continues we have no choice than to start lay-off of staff,” he said.
Nigeria, Africa most populous nation, needs more than 2mmt of poultry products annually to meet local demand, according to data from the country’s agricultural roadmap.
Nigerian farmers are only able to produce 300,000mmt, leaving a wide gap of more than 1.7mmt. With the gap between supply and demand, smugglers are encouraged by the inability of local suppliers to meet demand for these products.
“Smuggling persists because of the gap in demand and supply, and it will not stop until Nigeria increases local production capacity,” Edobong Akpabio, executive director, Living Green Farms and Garden Foundation, said.
Akpabio also noted that for the country to address this issue of smuggling, state governments should deliberately provide land for poultry businesses and establish funding for the development of the value chain.
Also, she stated that the government should provide the key infrastructure needed to grow the industry, saying it will help drive down production cost and encourage farmers to increase their production.
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has strongly warned against the consumption of imported poultry products, threatening to take action against smugglers or dealers found with the banned products.
Imported poultry products, especially chicken and turkey, have been identified as causative agent in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and antibiotics resistance. Some of these health conditions include hypertension, kidney disease, and cancer.
Josephine Okojie
