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BRIGHT PROSPECTS FOR NIGERIA’S ANIMAL FEED MARKET
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By Shem Oirere, Freelance journalist
igeria’s population is projected to hit 400 million people by 2050, from the current 190 million. This is likely to create huge demand for livestock and livestock products, opening up opportunity for growth of the country’s $12 billion animal feed market. The potential for an expanded animal feed sector in Nigeria is huge, underpinned by the current high livestock numbers now estimated at 10 million birds, 22 million cattle, 40 million sheep and 50 million goats. And, in the last few months, the Federal Government has been preparing ground for increasing the quantity and quality of animal feed production and distribution within Nigeria through several mechanisms, including providing clarity and certainty of the industry’s regulatory framework. “Demand for livestock and livestock products will more than double by 2050 and to satisfy this expected huge demand for animal protein and other livestock products, livestock production and productivity has to increase commensurably in quality and quantity by about 60 percent,” says Chief Audu Ogbe, Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development in a recent presentation. In addition, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates Nigeria’s poultry meat consumption will increase ten-fold by 2040, “assuming moderate feed costs, while domestic poultry production is expected to increase by 8 billion eggs and 100 million kilograms of poultry meat per annum.” The Department estimates Nigeria’s annual fish consumption to be two million tons, with over 20 percent supplied through land-based aquaculture production. Currently, Nigeria is on the throes of streamlining the country’s feed industry after the December 2017 promulgation of new guidelines on the formulation, production, distribution of the products spearheaded by the Governing Council of the Nigeria Institute of Animal Science (NIAS) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. NIAS has gazetted the new feed industry regulations, which the Institute says will enable livestock producers to “achieve high levels of performance through use of consistent good quality feed.” The rules, NIAS insisted, would support efforts to “protect health of consumers of animal products and safeguard health of animals and ensure quality animal feed distribution from feed-mill to farm level and that Nigeria markets animal feed products that meets national and international standards.” NIAS has published a list of ingredients that it considers mandatory in the formulation and manufacture of feed in Nigeria and which all animal feed makers have to use if the country is to raise the bar of “Nigeria’s animal feed products to meet international benchmarks on animal feed safety.” Some of the other requirements NIAS wants animal feed manufacturers and suppliers to adhere to include complying with specifications for premise construction and setting up of equipment for processing and storing the feeds, keeping records of raw materials received, registration of feed businesses and enlisting of animal scientists by the feed milling operators. NIAS says these new regulations require animal feed operators “to have at least one registered animal scientist as a technical officer to supervise operations of the mill.” To boost safety of the feed produced in Nigeria, NIAS insists the milling plants must
78 | November 2018 - Milling and Grain