The Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) has call on the federal government to enshrine cohesive policy to encourage private sector investments in agriculture by pegging interest rates on borrowing to the sector to a maximum of 3%.
Addressing the press in Abuja on Monday, the national president, Mr Ezekiel Ibrahim said Government reducing the interest rate to zero percent will assist poultry farmers the opportunity to strive.
He added that the government should subsides agriculture adding that if this is done, Nigeria will in the next two or three years be self sufficient in food production.
Ibrahim commended President Muhammadu Buhari for his quick response in approving 5000 metric tons of maize to the ‘Save Our Soul’ letter to him to assist the poultry industry from going down into extinction.
He said the 5000 metric ton of maize has been shared to small scale poultry farmers across the 36 states including FCT.
According to him, “It was 5000 metric tons that was given to us and not 13000 metric tons,” he said.
On the impact of the COVID-19 as it affects the sector, Ibrahim said the pandemic affected the sector serously as the sector lost over N1.5 trillion naira during the period.
Before we thought of asking the government to approve importation of maize, we had contacted maize farmers on production of maize for the poultry sector, but they were not able to produce.
“Thy told us that all they had from their previous farming session had been sold off, so we had to write to the federal government for importation base on the aggregation of the maize needed by our members,” he said
“It is very important that we operate within the purchasing power of Nigerians,” he said.
