Mr Oladele Steven, Project Manager, Amdalat Integrated Farm, Ogun State, has urged the federal and state governments to find a permanent solution to the egg glut in the poultry sector.
Steven made the plea in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday in Lagos.
He said there was a need for an immediate and permanent solution to avert total collapse of the sector.
Steven said that the government must be proactive in solving the problems which had crippled the sector.
He noted that the situation had affected the operations of many multi-billion naira businesses in the poultry value chain with farms struggling to survive.
He said there were a lot of new innovations that could be adopted by the government to address the challenges in the sector.
Steven noted that egg powder well known in developed countries was not being produced in Nigeria due to lack of facilities.
Egg powder production is a process of separating eggs into different kinds of egg products; egg white, egg yolk and whole egg mix through dehydrating or spray drying methods.
Egg powder is consumed on a large scale in food processing industries in developed countries like the US, Europe and Japan.
Powdered egg is mostly used by food industries, bakeries and confectioneries.
The process helps to provide longer shelf life when stored in a good temperature for up to six months.
He, however, said there were very few private companies providing such services in the country.
According to him, egg powder production is another new innovation in the preservation of egg production that must be embraced.
“I just got information that there is a company in Epe, Lagos that can turn the egg into powder.
“We don’t have to wait until there’s glut in the system before we start looking for a solution.
“We need to be proactive. We need to have innovation like this so that people can reduce their losses,” he said.
Steven urged poultry farmers to embrace new technology in order to reduce their losses and expand their sales.
He said that the preservation of eggs into powder would be a game changer in the sector.
adding that there are a lot of opportunities if embraced.
“My farm is going to look into how we can turn our eggs into powder to reduce our losses and also expand our business.
“There is already market for egg powder but we lack the facilities to process it. This is where government intervention is very crucial.
“We will partner with such company to see how we can help other farmers during glut.
“During the recent implementation of the Central Bank of Nigeria cashless policy, farmers recorded a lot of losses due to lack of sales.
“It was very difficult to sell our daily production thereby resulting into glut.
“I can tell you precisely now that every week in our farm, we lost N152,000 because we could not sell our eggs on time.
“We urge government to set up egg powder production factories across the country and to facilitate private investments in the sector,” he added.
Steven also urged the government to construct roads in the rural areas to ease movement of farm produce from the farm to the market.
NAN
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