Stakeholders in the animal feed sector have begun moves to ensure self-sufficiency in animal feed production, to bridge the supply gap across the country.
Rising from the Animal Feed Summit in Abuja, organised by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), in collaboration with the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), the stakeholders said the country is producing less than 25 per cent of its demand for livestock, hence the need to boost animal feed production.
The summit was targeted at addressing challenges facing the animal feed industry and how to develop alternative feed sources to achieve animal feed sustainability.
While highlighting the importance of the summit, the Executive Director of CJID, Dr. Tobi Oluwatola, said feed represents 70 per cent of livestock production, however, Nigeria is producing less than 25 per cent of its demand for livestock, hence the need to boost animal feed production.
He said, “CJID in collaboration with FMARD and Sahel Consulting organised this particular dialogue because animal feed is a very critical aspect of the value chain because represents 70 per cent of the cost of livestock production.
“Livestock production is where we get our proteins and we are really lagging behind on that, we are producing less than 25 per cent of our demand, so we really need to buckle up in that respect, that is why that aspect has been tackled.”
Oluwatola noted that the essence of the summit was to create a platform for stakeholders to dialogue and strategise on how to achieve self-sufficiency in animal feed production, thereby creating jobs for the youth, saying about 20 million jobs can be created from the sector.
“We also hope to ensure that the cost of livestock production in general comes down, and that may means that there will be need for some subsidies,” he added.
Senior Programme Manager, Sahel Consulting, Fisayo Kayode, said this year’s summit is looking beyond the conventional feed sources to seeing how they can also integrate farmers into understanding the importance of sourcing alternative feed resources.
She said Sahel Consulting is partnering the Ministry of Agriculture and CJID, to ensure they also put out there what the farmers are facing, what their needs are and how the different stakeholders – both public and private sectors can meet their needs through partnerships and collaborations that can promote productions, as well as local and foreign investments.
The Programmes Research Officer, Agriculture Desk at CJID, Ntiedo Ekott, said: “This is the second National Feed Summit that we bring stakeholders together to discuss on the National Feed Policy document and also to harness the alternative feed resources supply and to look at the core challenges that affects food and feed security in the country.
“We are hoping to get the policy document on feed and food supply ready on time, then to push it to the government for effective implementation. The core of the whole thing is food sufficiency and food security in the country.”
