Ekiti State Government has announced plans to employ 5,000 youths in the broiler production value chain as part of efforts to position the state as one of Nigeria’s leading poultry production hubs.
The Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Mr Ebenezer Boluwade, disclosed this in Ado-Ekiti during the opening ceremony of the training programme for youths under the Ekiti Youth in Broiler Production Scheme and stakeholders on Good Animal Husbandry Practices (GAHP) in poultry production.
Boluwade said the state government is determined to make Ekiti the best broiler-producing state in the country through strategic investments in poultry farming, youth empowerment and value chain development.
According to him, the Ekiti Broiler Production Scheme (EBOPS) was launched in 2023 with 20 participants at the Livestock Development Centre (LDC), Erifun, Ado-Ekiti, with an initial stock population of 10,000 birds.
He explained that the government renovated facilities at the LDC, including rearing pens, warehouses, offices and residential buildings, while also providing participants with feed, day-old chicks (DOC), drugs, vaccines and anti-stress supplements to support indigenous poultry entrepreneurs.
“Today through the intervention, more six rearing centres had sprang up at different locations in the State and the scheme had graduated over 200 participants in four sets of cohorts,” Boluwade said.
“Over 150,000 birds had been raised and sold within and outside the State. Ekiti Broiler Production Scheme has engaged our teeming youths profitably in broiler production, hence the need to build the capacity of the youths in the production value chain in order to minimise cost and maximise profits.”
The commissioner said the Livestock Productivity and Resilience Support Project (L-PRES) is also helping to strengthen poultry production in the state.
He revealed that Ekiti has received approval to establish a broiler processing plant aimed at reducing the movement of live mature birds outside the state for processing, which he described as risky for businesses.
“The youth in EBOPS will be able to process their birds for value addition and thereby increase their profit margin,” he said.
He added that the government had established three farmer field schools across the state’s three senatorial districts to expose farmers to new agricultural innovations and practical training.
Boluwade said the current training programme is targeting about 500 youths, while the government plans to scale participation significantly over the next three years.
“In this training, we are targeting about 500 youths. But in total, our objective in the next three years, we want to have more than 5,000 of these youths,” he said.
“So the whole focus is on the management, we have the producer, we have the midstream and the downstream.”
In his welcome address, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Ojo Ebenezer Babatope, said the poultry-focused GAHP training was designed to strengthen the technical capacity of farmers, especially participants in EBOPS.
He said the state government is also implementing a 50 per cent subsidy on agro-inputs and land preparation activities, while partnering with private sector players including Agbeyewa and YSJ Farms to improve investment and innovation in agriculture.
Babatope added that the government had established the “Ounje Ekiti” marketing hub to improve access to affordable locally-produced food commodities.
Speaking at the event, the Lead Consultant of Synergy Impact Consultant Ltd, Mr Abiola Salako, said participants are expected to develop their own poultry farms after the training.
He noted that the programme also covers proper use of antibiotics in poultry production to prevent health risks to consumers, adding that farmers are being encouraged to adopt alternatives such as organic acids and microbiotics.
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