Can we know you sir?
My name is Yakim Kasim, I am the operation manager CEMS Nigeria. Concerning the upcoming Nigerian poultry and livestock expo, can you please tell me, what the programme is all about.

Okay, the Nigerian poultry and livestock expo is an event, an exhibition or let me call it be to be meeting between the Nigeria livestock and poultry industry and foreign poultry and livestock companies from about six or seven countries. So during the event they will meet to discuss the future opportunity on us to make this industry productive and progressive and also to address some issues that is affecting Nigeria poultry and livestock industry. Also there is going to be a lot of Nigerian companies that is going to participate, those that have a new product they are going to how case to the world. Generally the purpose of putting this package together is to promote Nigerian poultry and livestock industry to the world, that We are also producers; we produce poultry and livestock feed, equipments, chemicals at our own level here in Nigeria. We also want to use this opportunity to tell the whole world that in the whole of West Africa that Nigeria is the largest marketers for poultry and livestock products and services.

While I was going through your site I found out that 25% Of Agricultural GDP is the livestock and 80 Billion Naira is the estimated commercial value of livestock industry, so with this how do you intend to boost and increase the agricultural revenue in the country considering the country’s economy at the moment, maybe from 80 billion to something better?
Before I answer that question, apart from what we are doing to promote this sector in Agriculture, because poultry and livestock is a sector in agriculture. So apart from what we are doing in our company to help this industry, the federal government has to take reasonable step to promote this sector too. I think recently the vice president Yemi Osibanjo mention a certain plan, a project that they want to Input in this industry to make it boom. Because there is a lot of prospect, a lot of future benefits in this towards economic development. So back to our question, during this event we have companies from advanced countries, when I talk about advanced countries I talk about countries that have practicalized systems that have innovations that have caused great economic boom in this poultry and livestock sector in China, India and Jordan so these countries are going to come this event to introduce to us what they have, we have companies that are into veterinary, equipment, even in reproduction in the poultry and livestock.
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So these countries are going to gather here that day to exchange knowledge with their Nigerian counterpart, to exchange ideas on how we can improve this industry by applying those method they have been using and we believe that if this meeting can be properly explored that there will be a huge turn around in the Nigeria poultry and livestock sector, because in the history of Nigeria poultry and livestock there has being no event so big so wide that will cover both livestock and poultry at a time. This is the first time in the whole West Africa that an event like this will take place. We have had other events on poultry alone but this is the first time that we are bringing two subsections in agriculture together, so with those companies that there foreign delegates are coming, we hope they will contribute positively to this sector and at the end of the event Nigeria would have learnt a lot from this other countries on how to improve this sector.

I discovered that Nigeria spent an estimated amount of 1.3 billon dollar on importation of dairy products and now the government target to double their milk production over 3-4 years both for domestic use and export purpose also. So how do you think they can be able to do that?
Thank you, it’s possible and its going to be a productive avenue for the economic growth of Nigeria. There are so countries in the world that do not have what Nigeria has, like crude oil, cocoa in terms of these natural resources, that there foreign exchange is based on these animals I mean livestock, cattle rearing. When we come to diary the milk production just one of them we have hide and skin, bone, meat, we have fat, all these can be acquired or produced from a cow, about the meat production is easy. Look at how Nigerians involve in cattle or dairy farming, go to north you will see that. In the whole West Africa Nigeria produce enough metric ton to satisfy our milk need in Nigeria and also for the export.

So why do they import if they can satisfy Nigerians?
The reason they import is because of their taste for foreign products, the people don’t encourage local production, unlike these nunu that we use to drink they are produced locally which some people think that they are not ok for production that its not good for consumption, and there is a lot of disadvantages in these foreign milk products, a lot of chemicals, Some of them before they can get to the final consumer it has spent like 3 months in the system. Some of them they require a lot of chemicals to make it last long on the phase line to avoid it expiring on time but look at this natural one that is gotten from the cow direct, that one Is natural and it has a lot of minerals that can help the body, but because of their taste for foreign products, imports have to be made. Currently I know that there are some foreign companies that are at the corner, there are some milk dairy companies that are tapping this opportunity, so I think this is what the government is seeing because if a big company from abroad can come purposely because of this natural endowment we have in Nigeria, let us look at that area and see what we can do to make it sustainable for the economic development.

Since the government trying to get this dairy product to be enough for us is a challenge already, so doubling it like they said in two or three or four years to get it enough for us and for export purposes how would they be able to do this?
Ok that one based on my own idea is going to be easy on the federal government to do, because what they are going to do is to involve a lot of investors in that line, there is a lot of advanced technology in this dairy farming alone that can make the milk industry strong enough for export and the local consumption, that reminds me during this event we have some reproduction companies which is very relevant to what we are discussing now, because if we have a good reproduction system for a dairy cow it can be able to produce enough milk to for consumption and for export, so during this event we have some breeding that is the reproduction companies that are coming to teach people how they can make, especially In that dairy farming in order to expose people to a lot of opportunity in the dairy farming which involve also meat so concerning the government there is a lot of ways the government can do it by involving investors, so with the right investor, with a suitable investor at that, I know it possible for the government to achieve this aim an objectives.

Government banned the importation of poultry products into the country, so the ban has brought with it huge demands on poultry products, these demands have made entrepreneur to venture into poultry and other related industry, so I want ask how are you helping these entrepreneurs to access loans at low interest rates, because it’s one thing to say enter into poultry farming, get things done, earn money, help grow the agricultural sector of the country and help grow the economy of the country and another thing to help the young entrepreneurs to achieve that so am asking how are you helping of how is the government helping the entrepreneurs to access loans with low interest, grants, equipment and machineries and maybe feeds for their birds, to be able to improve productivity?

Is there any of such scheme going on now, because sometimes it’s been said through the media and it ends there like it just said and not done?
Yes there is the loan opportunity, if you have met the criteria, for instance you go to bank of Agriculture they have different loan that you can go for, just go there and if you meet there criteria then you qualify for the loan
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With low interest rate?
Yes with low interest rate these an avenue for government to empower the masses either a poultry or life stock farmer even a very minimal interest rate just to encourage them. we have some recognized bank that are giving us loan to encourage the farmers in this industry and also some associations that do what they call ISUSU to help each other to improve because most of this farmers don’t need much capital to improve because some of them are back yard farmers that are just rearing only twenty to fifty birds maybe fifty to hundreds birds at their own convenience in their backyard so they don’t need much loan which is possible to get from those government department or micro finance banks or the association I mentioned earlier, so there is a current one going on., it depends on the avenue you want.

What of the equipment, is there any way they can get the farmers access to them?
Thank you for asking that question, because currently it’s because we don’t have enough encouragement from the government, if you have the time try and make research on the current progress we are making in Nigeria poultry and live stock industry, there is a lot of innovation concerning the equipment this equipment can be classified into two. There are some companies that import equipments from abroad into Nigeria to make poultry and livestock easier, but there are also some other companies that mould this equipment though they experience a lot of difficulties in getting these raw materials, in terms of finance, in terms of how it will work, but yet they are producing similar thing though it may not function in the same way but they are producing something locally that we can use in breeding and farming like poultry cage, we have a lot of hungry Nigerians that are building poultry cage and other hand we have advanced poultry cages that are imported from abroad so it depend so if you want to go for ma big farming business you go for the imported cages but for minimum business you can go for the minimum ones, already there are some companies here in Nigeria that produce these equipments that meet international standard at affordable prices. The major challenge is that we do not have enough governmental backing that will encourage these farmers so am use these opportunity to appeal to the government for its support towards this poultry and live stock sector.

Who is funding this Expo, is it CEMS Nigeria alone or are there other organization funding this event?
So there is no financial support from the government?
No no no financial support from the government, even from any angle there is no financial support, but because we have dream in the poultry and livestock sector that is why we come up with this idea with our own financial capacity to bring it to international standard.
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