The poultry market in the Niger Delta, estimated to be over N12.65billion, is expected to grow by several billions annually for the next couple of years. Southsouth Regional Editor Shola O’Neil and Mike Odiegwu look at how hitherto disadvantaged poultry farmers and processors are being trained to benefit from the growth.
Zigha Ayibakuro, an agro-entrepreneur from Bayelsa State, usually spends his days strutting around and watching his 4,000 chickens in his poultry at Opolo, Yenagoa. He is the proud owner of a processor plant, and apart from his birds, he relies on 40 out-growers for a steady flow of birds for his processing plant.
Business is good, but it is also set to get better for the man popularly called Zah, and he is looking forward with hope, as he recalled with excitement a meeting with the Foundation for Partnership Initiative in the Niger Delta (PIND Foundation) in 2014, and how his life has changed for the better.
Prior to that meeting Ayibakuro’s Zah consultancy firm only had an office accommodation in Yenagoa, from where it rendered training and entrepreneurial support services to a small number of clientele.
All that changed after he attended PIND’s Company Diagnostic Training in Warri, Delta State that year. It was one of several done by the Chevron Nigeria Limited, CNL-funded NGO to help financially disadvantaged members of the region and SME’s like Ayibakuro’s ZAH to get better deals from their economic and social endeavors.
His relationship with PIND changed his perceptions, increased his understanding of business opportunities in the region and propelled him and others to begin massive investment in poultry and other sub-sectors.
He started as a trainer, but rather than be contented with fees from training others to see and take advantage of opportunities that he provided on behalf of the foundation, he delved fully into poultry farming and processing, because of the massive opportunities he was exposed to by the training.
He has acquired 6,000-chickens per hour processing facility and is currently working on its takeoff. While waiting for that venture to come on stream, he has started another 2,000 birds per day processor at Opolo, Yenagoa, using a locally fabricated machine acquired through PIND’s technical assistance.
“PIND helped in strengthening our operational processes and at the same time started doing studies and showing us opportunities in the region that we can take advantage of. So, being a smart entrepreneur you can’t be teaching people best practice in business without investing in the opportunities.”
“PIND has invested in poultry study, understanding the opportunities in poultry value chain in the Niger Delta – where the market is and where the opportunities are. So, what some of us are simply doing is leveraging the study to maximize the opportunities.”
Chidi Precious Agbunno is PIND Foundation’s Market Development Manager. Before assuming his new position, he was in charge of business linkages and poultry intervention, and has ample expertise in the foundation’s work with poultry farmers across the region.
Speaking exclusively with Niger Delta Report, he said PIND started work in the sector under its business linkages programme, with initial focus on supporting local community suppliers to American oil giant, Chevron Nigeria Limited.
“We did some assessments in Chevron to look at their supply chain, to identify areas where local community enterprises can participate more. We looked at construction, we looked at catering and food processing, we looked at marine services and in all these we saw opportunities in catering because we found that Chevron was buying a lot of food items.
“They were buying over $7million worth of chicken annually – between 2012 and 2013, when we did the assessment. We found huge opportunities to increase the participation of local community contractors (LCCs), and by extension, we also support older farmers who can as well benefit in that huge market, not just in Chevron but in other oil and gas companies,” he said.
Apart from the over $7m (or N2.52bn), spent by Chevron on chicken, the analysis showed that Shell Nigeria, AGIP and other oil firms were also spending heavily on poultry meat and products.
“By the time we put all these together we thought that the market for processed chicken in the Niger Delta was worth about $35millions in a year, and that is a huge market. We did further value chain analysis to understand how the local industries are tapping into that market.”
Sadly, the study showed that the local industry’s benefit from the huge subsector was very small, as poultry products supplied for these operations were sourced from outside the region.
“Most of the processed chicken was coming in from the Southwest because the Niger Delta region, Warri and environs in particular do not have chicken processing capabilities.
“We also found that it is not just chicken, even eggs, there was huge demands for eggs by the catering companies, hotels and fast food outlets in the region. Demand was huge and the local production capacity was quite low and we don’t have chicken processing plants to meet that demand.”
The studies, he said, showed that egg producers were not as productive as those in the Southwest, resulting in eggs being more expensive in the delta states than other parts of the country.
“We tried to find out why that was the case. We found that our farmers are not as competitive as southwestern farmers and so local egg distributors go to Southwestern states and even North Central (Kwara) to buy large quantity, as much 1,000 – 4,000 crates per week to supply catering companies and the local markets.”
It was against this backdrop of huge gap in demand and supply that PIND started training of entrepreneurs to process poultry meat and farmers to produce birds and eggs more efficiently. But first, they worked with local SMEs to see opportunities in chicken processing and to set up processors. While at the same time also working farmers on best practices to produce quality birds in cheaper and more profitable ways.
One of the earlier beneficiaries was Ayibakuro. His 6,000-bird per hour capacity processing set-up was sited in Yenagoa, with the aid of PIND. The facility would soon come on stream. In Ondo state, PIND supported Prince Blessing Omogbemi’s 50,000-bird per month Perfect Works processor, and in Delta state, it worked with Toju’s Wenedel Integrated Farm. The latter was able to attracted funding of N16million for the project.
Apart from the fund and technical supports, Ayibakuro explained that the studies carried out by PIND Foundation were invaluable for him and others. “If as a private businessman you want to carry out such studies, you spend nothing less than N20million to do analysis and travel. But PIND had taken the pains and the cost to do the studies.”
“It is because we are relating with PIND that is why we have that kind of vision because we now understand that the market is scalable. As long as they are giving birth to people, everybody eats chicken. There is no cultural barrier to eating chicken. There is always a market for chicken,” he added.
But it was not bread and butter all through, according Chidi Agbunno, because there would be no chicken to process if there are no farmers to produce the chicken, just as there would be no incentives for farmer to increase their output if there are no processors with capacity to take more.
To create a steady supply stream, PIND focused on eliminating hurdles facing local poultry farmers’ quest to increase their productivity and competitiveness. To this end, technical and business trainings were provided for an initial 120 farmers drawn from five states.
“We looked at farmers generally, how can we improve their capacity and productivity, and we found that the best way is to reduce the mortality rate. We found that farmers sometimes were experiencing up to 50 percent mortality; some were getting 100 percent mortality, which is a total loss. Even mortality rate that is above 20percent is still very high.”
To achieve this, specialist agro-service and master service providers such as Dr. Shanon Ohaka, Dr. Fish Israel, and Ayodeji Badejo were engaged to train would-be trainers and farmers on best practices. The target was to reduce mortality rate to about 10percent through best poultry practices: best feeding practices, vaccination and ensuring that the right drugs are available and administered at the right stage.
“We were working with vet input companies to be able to do that and also helping with assessing the market as well to enable them sell their birds, because by the time they reduce mortality, they will have access to more birds,” Agbunno said.
Master Service Providers (MSPs) working with PIND also helped to identify local poultry consultants to reach the farmers and train them on good poultry practices and also to identify and work with input companies. There were also efforts to help farmers to source for funds to start or scale up operations.
As in other sectors where PIND has intervened, there was no cash gift; but instead, interested partners were sourced to provide services that are paid for by farmers.
”We brought in Nigeria Content Board to help farmers with inputs, day-old chicks and feeds for 500 birds each, some vaccines, and heating support. The service providers also trained these 120 farmers; there were business trainings and also technical training and then they were prepared.”
“These 120 farmers have actually finished their first circle, they have grown 500 birds each (60,000 total) and they have supplied to chicken processing plants and the plant is also supplying processed chicken now to fast foods in the Niger Delta.”
Agbunno disclosed that over 1,200 farmers have been trained under the Poultry Linkage Programme of PIND, revealing that the target was to reach 6,000 before the project winds down.
Commending the training, Ayibakuro said poultry processing and farming could help build peace in the region, stressing that incident of kidnapping, violence and criminalities would greatly reduce when youths are exposed to such trainings.
“I can’t regret my partnership with PIND. We are busy expanding and going beyond poultry to invest in fish production, cassava, and palm oil. We realize through PIND that the opportunities are endless because people must eat in the region. The day we start feeding ourselves as Niger Delta people, kidnapping, restiveness and other forms of criminality will stop.”
“Like I have always said working with PIND over the years for me is a goal. PIND doesn’t give anybody money. It doesn’t share money to people. What PIND does for you is to help you reduce the bottlenecks when it comes to scoping of opportunities in the Niger Delta.
“PIND is making the investment process easy by telling people that there is money in poultry. Beyond helping reducing the stress in understanding the opportunities, they also help you in building capacity. It is not just in poultry, PIND does it in every sector. PIND also organise capacity building sections, training on best practice, methodology, documentation and planning.”