KANO/JIGAWA CHRONICLES For Jigawa farmers, feather manure is gold
As evolution continues to catch up with all spheres of life, birds feather, hitherto a waste, is now a valuable product in Jigawa state, Chronicles can report.
In the past, a heap of feather was equivalent to any other form of waste, however, a recent discovery of its importance to farming has changed the whole narration as farmers now queue to get their supply.
Chronicles observed that feather is becoming a farmer’s delight in the state as it improves soil fertility when used as local manure, thereby increasing yields.
Apart from being cheapest, feather is also easy to apply on the farm as it only requires a farmer to spread it across the farmland and after allowing it to decompose, which give it the needed soil nutrients.
Our reporter gathered that, following this discovery, a 100kg of feather is now being sold between N500 and N700 and farmers have to book for their supplies due to its scarcity.
Malam Labaran Sale, a farmer who cultivates maize and guinea corn in Kiyawa local government, told Chronicles that he had been using birds feather manure in his farm in the last three years and it always pays.
He explained that another advantage of feather manure is that it does not require much labour for maximum result.
“I always book ahead of time. The demand of the product is always more than the supply, so one has to book ahead. It is very effective on my farm as it gives me better output.
Another farmer in Hadejia local government, Malam Yusuf Aliyu, said feather manure was effective and because many farmers had embraced it in place of the organic fertilizer, it was becoming scarce.
“I have benefitted from feather manure in the past which I used to get in large quantity from my brother who was into poultry before the business collapsed.
“When I first applied it on my maize, I harvested over 70 bags that particular year as against the usual 35 to 40 bags. I painfully stopped using feather manure on my farmland due to its scarcity,” he said.
Mohammed Auwal is a bird dresser and dealer of feather in Dutse and he told our reporter that although it takes him between three to four weeks to generate about five bags of feather, buyers are always available, adding that it serves as additional source of income to birds’ dressers.
For Rufa’i Baballe, a dealer who generates little revenue from the sales of feather, said “sometime we prefer to apply it on our farmlands than to sale it because the gain is not much. Its benefit in the farm is far better than selling it.
“For me, I prefer taking the feather I generated to my farm than selling it to other farmers. Since I have a farm, it is better to use the feather than to sell it.”