Poultry farming has become one of the biggest components of Nigeria’s agriculture with abundant social and economic potential, contributing 25 per cent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
However, the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO-UN) and other stakeholders all agree that developing the poultry industry in Nigeria is the fastest means of bridging the protein-deficiency gap in the country.
To align with this, Natnudo Foods, a subsidiary of Amo Farms Sieberer Hatchery (AFSH) recently set up a broiler chicken out-grower scheme known as ‘natnuPreneur’ to help boost supply of high quality locally bred chicken for consumption and making quality chicken available and affordable. The scheme has been helping farmers to revive abandoned and moribund poultry farms across the country.
The initiative, said to be capable of providing direct and indirect employment for millions of Nigerians, is the foremost and most successful broiler out-grower scheme in the country.
While guiding journalists round some facilities belonging to three companies under the Amo Group in Oyo State, Mr. Alaba Yunusa, Data Analyst and Farmer Satisfaction Representative (FSR), said:
“The scheme still has, in purvey, the potential of providing employment for over 2 million Nigerians within the poultry value chain, that is feed mills, hatchery, logistics and transportation, chicken processing, chicken distribution and retailing – natnuPreneur seller, if well supported.
“Between 2014 and 2017, the programme has on board 1,156 farmers under different categories and clusters; off taken 4,348,640 birds and paid out N4,352,327,119.80 to famers.” This record, he revealed, has drawn the attention of various financial institutions like the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Bank of Industry (BoI), Bank of Agriculture (BoA), Sterling Bank, Heritage Bank among others, to partner with natnuPreneur and support its famers. Also, because of their well-thought-out scientific process for broiler farming, natnuPreneur farmers have the ability to do six cycles yearly with mortality rate as low as 4 per cent.
Group Head, Policy and Strategy, Amo Group, Francis Toromade, said the essence of the natnuPreneur scheme is to help farmers use fewer resources to get more results and enhance sustained profitability. He added that poultry farmers are now more efficient and moribund farms have jerked back to life through the initiative.
He added: “We have facility here to process 30,000 birds per day. We equally have similar facilities in Port Harcourt that can process 5,000 birds per day, same in Kaduna, which has capacity to process 10,000 birds a day. Uyo is under construction. At completion, it would process 10,000 birds per day. So we have plans to process 55,000 birds on daily basis.
“We are encouraging farmers who have abandoned farm to jack them back to life. We have decentralised the whole processing just to empower farmers around the country. Our own plan is to empower and alleviate poverty and to let farmers have good returns on their investment, which is our main reason of decentralising this programme.”
In addition, Mrs. Remi Tomori of Honeydew Farms who is a farmer under the scheme in Arulogun Ibadan, said, “our farm has a capacity of 4,000 birds, which are presently in their fifth week. We joined natnuPreneur in October 2014 and till date, only 15 birds mortality has been recorded on our farm. Through training and regular visitation, we realise an average weight of 1.8 as against the 1.7 minimum agreed weight. We’ve also been able to do between five and seven cycles per year.
“Before we joined natnuPreneur, we were rearing layers but there were too many challenges; pilfering, high mortality, debt, stress and even marketing problems. But natnuPreneur is taking all these risks and stress off us. The scheme is incomparable in terms of returns on investment as I realise more than 50 per cent profit annually,” she added.
Also speaking with newsmen during the tour, Mrs. Adepeju Cole, a staff of Sandtech Farms, a natnuPreneur farm in Oyo State, said: “Since we joined the scheme about a year ago, our capacity has increased to 30,000 birds. Presently, we have 20,000 birds on our farm. In fact, this is our fifth cycle with natnuPreneur and it has been quite profitable. Through the help of the FSR in our area, our mortality rate has reduced from 10 per cent to 4 per cent and we’ve also been able to achieve the agreed weight of 1.75 for our broilers.”