Heifer Launches Poultry Development Project in Edo State
In its bid to address the systemic constraints responsible for Nigeria’s poultry sector underperformance and unlock more opportunities for smallholder farmers, Heifer International is collaborating with the Edo State Government and Amo Farm Sieberer Hatchery Limited, to empower 500,000 smallholder poultry farmers by 2030, through linkages to improved but environmental friendly poultry production practices and innovations, new premium market opportunities, and innovative financing.
According to Nigeria Country Director of Heifer International, Rufus Idris: “Major poultry processors and off-takers are located hundreds of kilometers away from Edo, making such market inaccessible for Edo poultry farmers. Hence, farmers have to sell their chickens in the open market at prices that are not profitable in the long run”.
“Today marks a major milestone in the Nigerian poultry sector, as this partnership has birthed a revolutionary initiative designed to expand the operation of Nigeria’s leading poultry processor to Edo State through the establishment of a world-class processing plant that will immediately unlock the market for smallholder poultry farmers in
Edo and neighbouring states as they can now produce with confidence to sell to a guaranteed premium market and earn a sustainable living income,” said Idris.
On his part, Edo State Commissioner for Agriculture, Stephen Idehenre reiterated the commitment of Edo State government to make the state the biggest poultry hub in Nigeria.
“The essence of the partnership with Heifer International and Amo farm is to create a market for our poultry farmers. We have identified one of the problems of farmers which is the lack of access to the market, and we have now brought in a major off-taker which is Amo farms to offtake and process made-in-Edo chicken, starting with about 10,000 poultry birds per day with a plan to scale-up as farmers’ production capacity. We anticipate that most of those abandoned poultry farms will be revived because there is now a ready market,” said Idehenre.
Amo Farm MD/CEO, Dr. Ayoola Oduntan commended the Edo State Government and Heifer International for collaborating to attract the company to Edo State and for helping to de-risk the massive investment the company is making in the state.