Shiloh
Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: http://www.africasia.com/services/news/newsitem.php?area=africa&item=080416124730.gxg0i217.php
16/04/2008 12:47 KANO, Nigeria, April 16 (AFP)
Grain price hikes threaten northern Nigerian poultry
Rising grain prices are threatening northern Nigeria's poultry stocks, already hard hit by outbreaks of bird flu two years ago, farmers and veterinary officials said Wednesday.
The problem is affecting poultry farmers throughout the north, where four-fifths of all poultry was culled during the bird flu crisis.
Compounded by a drop in poultry sales, the situation is particularly acute in the state of Kano, hardest hit by avian influenza.
In the past six months all the grains used as chicken feed -- maize, groundnut cake and wheat chaff -- have either doubled or tripled in price, said Auwalu Haruna, spokesman for the Kano Poultry Farmers' Association.
"We are heavily dependent on grains which constitute over 80 percent of our chicken feed. This is hampering our restocking efforts," he said.
A bird flu outbreak on a farm in Kaduna state in February 2006 spread to several states in the north. The outbreak was most severe in neighbouring Kano, where more than 300,000 chickens were lost to the virus.
When health experts brought the outbreaks under control with wide-scale culling, farmers gradually started to replace their depleted stocks -- only to find themselves faced with rising grain prices after lighter-than-usual rainfall exacerbated by a locust invasion.
"Poultry farmers are really suffering as a result of the high cost of chicken feed," said Shehu Bawa, a consultant veterinarian who headed Kano's avian influenza control committee during the outbreak.
"Their situation is made worse by a poor market for their products as consumers use the money they would have used to buy eggs or chickens to purchase grain which is more important to them," Bawa said.
According to Bawa, over 80 percent of Kano's 350 poultry farms have restocked but none of them to capacity.
"When it costs a farmer as much to feed his 5,000 replacement birds as it used to cost to feed the 20,000 he lost, and when he gets half the business he got before the epidemic, it's not viable for him to stay in business," Haruna of the poultry farmers association said.
16/04/2008 12:47 KANO, Nigeria, April 16 (AFP)
Grain price hikes threaten northern Nigerian poultry
Rising grain prices are threatening northern Nigeria's poultry stocks, already hard hit by outbreaks of bird flu two years ago, farmers and veterinary officials said Wednesday.
The problem is affecting poultry farmers throughout the north, where four-fifths of all poultry was culled during the bird flu crisis.
Compounded by a drop in poultry sales, the situation is particularly acute in the state of Kano, hardest hit by avian influenza.
In the past six months all the grains used as chicken feed -- maize, groundnut cake and wheat chaff -- have either doubled or tripled in price, said Auwalu Haruna, spokesman for the Kano Poultry Farmers' Association.
"We are heavily dependent on grains which constitute over 80 percent of our chicken feed. This is hampering our restocking efforts," he said.
A bird flu outbreak on a farm in Kaduna state in February 2006 spread to several states in the north. The outbreak was most severe in neighbouring Kano, where more than 300,000 chickens were lost to the virus.
When health experts brought the outbreaks under control with wide-scale culling, farmers gradually started to replace their depleted stocks -- only to find themselves faced with rising grain prices after lighter-than-usual rainfall exacerbated by a locust invasion.
"Poultry farmers are really suffering as a result of the high cost of chicken feed," said Shehu Bawa, a consultant veterinarian who headed Kano's avian influenza control committee during the outbreak.
"Their situation is made worse by a poor market for their products as consumers use the money they would have used to buy eggs or chickens to purchase grain which is more important to them," Bawa said.
According to Bawa, over 80 percent of Kano's 350 poultry farms have restocked but none of them to capacity.
"When it costs a farmer as much to feed his 5,000 replacement birds as it used to cost to feed the 20,000 he lost, and when he gets half the business he got before the epidemic, it's not viable for him to stay in business," Haruna of the poultry farmers association said.