The continued scarcity of the naira has crashed many poultry businesses and the industry may collapse before the incoming administration takes over the government by May ending if nothing is done to salvage the situation, operators in the sector warned on Monday. It was also gathered that over 80 per cent of eggs that were laid since the first week of February this year by about 76 million commercial layers (birds), were not sold due to the inability of consumers to make purchases with cash.
The Director-General, Poultry Association of Nigeria, Dr Onallo Akpa, who spoke on behalf of poultry farmers, told our correspondent in Abuja that most consumers of eggs and other poultry products often carried out cash transactions. “But what we are facing since February is that people have no access to cash. The wholesalers who buy at the farm-gate price are to retail these eggs to consumers or retailers. “But the consumers have no money to buy the eggs; even when they have the money in their accounts, they don’t have cash to pay for it. This is because many of the poor masses don’t have the resources to buy a crate of eggs, which is 30 in the crate.
“People pick five eggs, fry it for immediate consumption, while those who make tea and other light foods on the road, buy like half crates or at times 10 eggs, and these are based on cash transactions,” he stated. Akpa, however, stated that because of the near absence of cash to do this sort of daily transactions, a lot of poultry farmers had been unable to sell their eggs from the first week of February till date. Source: Poultry firms may collapse before June, operators warn (punchng.com)
