The General Manager of Premier Feeds Limited (PFL), one of the major producers of poultry feeds in Nigeria, Mr. Austin Dalyop, has called on government at all levels to fix rising prices of food, maize and soybeans.

Insecurity in the grain-producing states, and by extension in all parts of the country, has worsened the supply-demand gap of food crops and industrial inputs such as feeds ingredients, product movement and market penetration.

Added to that mix is the farmer-herder crisis in key farm hubs, which has impacted grain production negatively. The rise of the population in the country intensifies competition for grains between industrial food processors for humans/direct consumption and animal feeds producers, constantly pushing prices up.

Soybean meal is the dominant protein supplement used in poultry diets and is the standard to which alternative protein sources are compared. Soybeans can be fed to poultry whole or as soybean meal, a by-product of oil extraction. Oil can be extracted from soybeans by the application of pressure, which is referred to as expeller or mechanical extraction, or by solvent extraction. Guardian