With increasing demand for good stocks to produce day old chicks, the Nigerian Institute of Animal Science (NIAS) has gathered stakeholders to discuss new standards in the hatchery and breeding sector.
Poultry is one of the largest subsectors in agriculture. It has created jobs, empowered small farmers and boosted food security.
Faced with the growing demand for eggs and poultry meat, the Nigerian Institute of Animal Science (NIAS) gathered stakeholders in Ibadan to discuss the new standards for operators of hatcheries and producers of day-old chicks.
The objective was to intimate them on the expectations of the government towards establishing an environment that would support world-class poultry breeding and boost production.
The forum allowed the participants to obtain information on the various aspects of poultry production such as biology and physiology of birds, breeding and rearing systems, nutrition, health, hygiene and food security, environmental impact and product quality.
At the forum, stakeholders expressed the need to certify more producers of pure lines and grandparent stocks of poultry that will be subject to regulation by the government.
One of them was Managing Director, Rostal Resources Limited, Taiwo Adeoye. He described poultry producers as the backbone of the agriculture sector. Despite the challenges, he said farmers had continued to produce high-quality products and kept the industry competitive and resilient.
To help poultry and egg producers become more competitive, Adeoye, who chaired the occasion, said the industry needed regulations to ensure breeders and hatcheries produced the highest quality day-old chicks.
He said the industry was facing challenges which were not enhancing performance and profitability. While feed and other issues are critical, according to him, the quality of day-old chicks is important to achieving maximum broiler performance.
He said improvement in poultry production was one of the most promising options for Nigerians to gain affordable protein. For the industry, however, he noted that it had not been good news with so many farms closing following rising costs of feed. He said farmers were battling with high cost of procuring day-old chicks and feeds. The Nation