Poultry farmers in Abuja have cried out over rising cost of feeds and other production input in the poultry business.
The farmers, on Thursday, decried that the rise in the cost of feed affected their business, increasing the cost of production and selling price.
A dealer in poultry products decried an order for one truck of feed which took over one month to sell to poultry farmers, unlike in the past when such consignment is sold within two weeks.
A day-old chicken was sold at the cost of N280 per one but now selling for N420.
A poultry farmer complained that the quantity of feeds and chickens sold has reduced drastically because of the high cost of poultry materials.
“I used to buy 100 bags of feed and 200-day-old chickens but presently I cannot buy these quantities again.
“A bag of chicken feed is now sold at N9,800, but as at last year was sold for N7,000 per bag.
“We are calling on the Federal Government to help us poultry farmers to subsidise the price of feeds and chickens for us not to go out of business.
“Government can also make available soft loans to enable us to do our poultry business.
“Also, the government knows the importance of our business in terms of the masses having a good standard of living, poultry is one of the essential proteins they need to maintain their standard of living,’’ the farmer said.