Nigeria's food inflation is highest in 15 years and insecurity, COVID-19, climate change and economic policies have pushed food prices beyond the reach of millions.
The prices of poultry products in Nigeria are at their highest levels ever as the country faces its worst food inflation in at least 15 years, traders, consumers and producers in the sector have told PREMIUM TIMES.
Food inflation reached 27 per cent in February 2021, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, making it the highest since at least 2005. The rise has seen the prices of all classes of food skyrocket almost on a daily basis, leaving Nigeria's large population of poor citizens struggle to get food and key ingredients.
A bag of rice that sold for about N7,000 around 2016 now sells as much as N40,000 for some brands. A sachet of tomato that sold for N50 now sells for N150, while a loaf of bread has risen from N250 to N400.
One food sector that has been particularly hit is poultry, which millions rely on for protein needs. A kilogramme of chicken that previously sold for N800 now sells for N2000, while a crate of egg that sold for N700 now sells for N1500.
A PREMIUM TIMES examination shows how several factors have contributed to the rise in poultry prices, and how the government's efforts have yielded little or no impact in solving the problem.
In several interviews, poultry farmers, livestock feed processors and marketers said the rise in the prices of key ingredients for poultry feeds is the major reason for the hike in prices of poultry products in the country.
The two most important ingredients are maize and soybeans. The supply of these two crops has fallen steeply in recent months, they said, and a key reason has been insecurity that has put farmers off work last year, Covid-19 disruption, weather changes, and challenges with importation.
"It has never been this bad," said a poultry farmer in Ekiti State, Uthman Awwal. "This increase is directly from the farmers who plant maize, we are unable to get maize and soybean this period, so those that have maize are selling to the feed millers at higher prices.
"The maximum price we have noticed for the past 20 years ranges between N108, 000 to N110,000 but now, I just came back from Abuja yesterday, I was told that it has gone up to N500,000 per tonne which has never happened."
Mr Awwal said about a year ago, "when things were still normal", poultry feeds sold between the range of N2,900 and N3,000. By 2020, feeds rose to between N4,000 and N4,500. Lately, it jumped to N6,500.
These high costs have translated along the chain to the final poultry products.
At Babangida market at FHA in Lugbe, Abuja, Iya Hikima told PREMIUM TIMES that 10 kilograms of chicken she used to buy for N10,000, now sells for N13,500 and above. The price of 10kg of turkey previously at N14,000 stands at N18,000.
"We did sell a kg of hard chicken at a rate of N1,500 before, it is now N1, 800," she said.
At Ogbete Market in Enugu State, buyers said as of October 2020 a crate of eggs sold for N950, but later increased to N1, 200 per crate in November.
Ajewole Zaccheaus, a poultry farmer in Ayetoro Ekiti, Ekiti State, who spoke with this newspaper, also attributed the rising prices to the high cost of feeding.
Mr Zacchaeus said when he started poultry farming over two years ago, he used to buy a bag of feed at N3,000, but that as of today, the price of feed goes over N5,000.
"The current challenge in the sector now is feed, the cost of feeding is too high in Nigeria and even the challenges have reduced the profit maximisation in the poultry sector," he said.
The feeds are expensive because their ingredients are costly and scarce.
The president of Poultry Farmers Association of Nigeria, Kaduna State chapter, Timothy Okunade, told PREMIUM TIMES farmers now buy a tonne of maize at N195,000 against N90,000 it sold for a year ago. Soybeans goes for N310,000 a tonne as against N130,000 last year.
Maize and soybean production
Between 1999 and 2020, Nigeria produced more maize than it did at independence, data from the United States Department for Agriculture (USDA) says.
The country's maize production figures in the last five years were the highest ever. Production rose from 10.1 million metric tonnes (mmt) in 2014 to 11.6 mmt in 2016, and by 2017, the figure fell to 10.4 mmt, before surging in 2018 to 11.0 mmt, a figure maintained in 2019. It rose to 11.5mmt in 2020.
Data from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) shows that soybean production in Nigeria has been rising and falling. It rose from 588,523 tonnes in 2015 to 936,887 tonnes in 2016. In 2017, the figure increased further to 993,955 tonnes, but fell to 650,000 and 630,000 tonnes in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
