Bird flu: Affected farmers yet to get compensation
‘Food production not keeping pace with population growth’
Poultry farmers in Kano State are angry as the Federal Government has refused to redeem its promises on compensation. Speaking to newsmen in Kano, the Chairman of Kano State Poultry Farmers Association Dr. Muhammad Auwal Haruna said that in February 2015 the federal ministry of agriculture approved the payment of N100 Poor funding of the agricultural sector, inadequate research and extension, have been fingered as the obstacles to achieving food sufficiency in Nigeria.
Making this observation at an audience participatory programme known as “Radio Links” on Radio Nigeria, monitored recently by our reporter, Professor Garba Sharubutu, Provost of the College of Animal and Husbandry Technology, in Vom, Plateau State, said that Nigeria’s population was growing at 3.2 per cent per million as compensation to farmers affected by the avian influenza in the state in January.
According to him, compensation was paid to those farmers affected by the first outbreak of the avian influenza while others affected by the subsequent outbreak, who were more in number, were yet to be compensated.
The chairman said that the non-payment of compensation to the affected farmers has forced some farmers to abandon poultry for some things else. annum while food production witnessed only between 1 to 2 per cent. Sharubutu said that a lot of issues including policy, funding, training, research and extension must be properly addressed by the government and other stakeholders in the agricultural sector in order to boost food production in the country.
He said: “The colleges of agriculture are not properly funded to carry out their mandate. To worsen the situation, they cannot be funded by the Tertiary Education Fund (TETFUND) because they are under the federal ministry of agriculture not
According to him, the affected farms were the most productive poultry farms in the state, providing employment to people, describing the lack of compensation as a huge setback to the sector.
Haruna said: “It is indeed disheartening to notice that some of our members are running out of business because they were being badly affected by the flu. Imagine a single farm where over 184,000 birds are depopulated without a single
penny as compensation. We education. How can they properly carry out training and research?”
Also speaking on the programme, Architect Kabiru Ibrahim, a poultry and fish farmer from Katsina State and the President of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), faulted the persistent low budgetary allocations to agriculture, and advocatedg for 20% of the national budget to be dedicated to the sector annually to create enabling environment for the farmers to produce more.
Another guest on the programme, Dr. Amos Edga, President of the Nigeria really felt threatened and most of our members are in a state of panic because it could be any body. Let me use this medium and appeal to the federal government to wade in and save the situation before it gets out of hand as many of such affected farms have started down-sizing their workers.”
He said that there were evidences that the federal government has received $5 million donation from the World Bank as part of the Veterinary Medical Association (NVMA), lamented the lack of data on animal population in the country, saying the last animal census was done in the 90s.
He urged the government to carry out animal population census to ensure proper planning and boost animal.
On how to tackle bird-flu outbreak in Nigeria, he said the government should intensify surveillance and killing of affected birds, adding that farmers should be discouraged from vaccinating their birds against the disease because “that is not a good practice.