 The rise in inflation rate in food and agricultural produce poses a challenge that stares us in the face. Dependence on imported food items also contributes to the pressure on foreign exchange. According to a 2019 report by the Central Bank of Nigeria, it was estimated that over 1.2 million metric tons of poultry meat is smuggled into Nigeria from the Republic. These opened a huge gap in the poultry market. Just how can this gap be closed? On the show today, we will be looking at the huge potentials in poultry of vis-à-vis meat consumption needs of Nigerians. Welcome to Business Insights and Plus TV Africa. I am Justin Acadonia. Welcome back. Nigeria's manufacturing sector recorded a real GDP growth of 4.29% year-on-year and improvement from the corresponding quarter of 2020 and the preceding quarter of the second quarter of 2021 by 5.80% and 0.80% respectively while the agricultural sector grew 1.22% year-on-year in real terms in the third quarter of 2021. That and more rounded up business Nigeria this week. Take a look. Nigeria's manufacturing sector recorded a real GDP growth of 4.29% year-on-year and improvement from the corresponding quarter of 2020 and the preceding quarter of the second quarter of 2021 by 5.80% and 0.80% respectively. This information was contained in the quarterly Gross Domestic Product Report published by the National Bureau of Statistics. The nominal GDP growth for the sector however was recorded at 33.73% reflecting a growth of 19.18% from quarter three of 2020 and a decline of 5.60% quarter-on-quarter. The contribution of manufacturing to the nominal GDP in the third quarter of 2021 was 15.59% higher than its contribution to the nominal GDP in the corresponding period of 2020 at 13.56% and higher than the contribution in quarter two of 2021 at 14.18%. Nigeria's agricultural sector grew 1.22% year-on-year in real terms in the third quarter of 2021. This is a decrease of 0.17% points from the corresponding period of 2020 and a decrease of 0.08% points from the preceding quarter which recorded a growth rate of 1.30%. It grew on a quarter-on-quarter basis at 39.83%. This was disclosed in the third quarter of 2021 GDP report released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Thursday. The report said that Nigeria's Gross Domestic Product GDP grew by 4.03% year-on-year in real terms in the third quarter of 2021. Power consumers nationwide may start to pay more for electricity following plans by the federal government to carry out a review of power tariff. This came as the federal government said on Wednesday that it had commenced the procurement of 4 million meters meant to be distributed free of charge to unmetered power users nationwide. It also put the number of unmetered electricity consumers in Nigeria at about 8 million and in that over 860,000 meters were distributed for free to power users on the phase zero of the national mass metering program. The federal government, 36 states of the Federation and the 774 local government areas of the country shared the sum of 671.91 billion naira as the revenue that accrued into the coffers of the government for the month of October. This was disclosed in the report signed by the Accountant General of the Federation Ahmed Idris which was released during the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee meeting in Lagos on Wednesday. The report noted that for the month of October 2021 the gross revenue available from value added tax was 166.28 billion naira as the gang's 170.85 billion naira distributed in the preceding month resulting in a decrease of 4.56 billion naira. Jair Nusrat Nair is the co-founder and Chief Executive Office of Agricor International, Nigeria's fast growing agriculture producing, processing and export company and it has invested 4 billion naira into acquiring poultry production facilities across three states in Nigeria. Many thanks for joining us, I'm Kenneth Tamobi Agilu on the show this evening. Thank you for having me. All right in my intro I did say that 1.2 million metric tons of poultry meat are smuggled into Nigeria from Benna Republic. How did we get there and what's the effect of these on the nation's economy? I mean so typically it's a function of demand supply gaps right and as a consuming nation right the the poultry industry itself is set at about 1.5 million tons a year you know and so that shows you that the larger proportion of it has been imported into the country means the consumption is in excess of the supply locally so the production in Nigeria does not meet with the demand you know of poultry consumption. Nigeria consumes roughly about 3 million birds every single day you know that's to show you how much is required to be able to meet that demand so I think most of this demand is now met by importing and as a result of the ban on poultry products as well most of the smugglers will have to go through that route. Okay so is it a thing that we are not capable enough as a country to meet these demand? One would have thought that it's a huge opportunity that has presented itself and the migrants can actually just key into the value chain. Yes it's it's actually a tremendous opportunity for those in the agricultural space and also agricultural enthusiasts to be able to tap into that opportunity but you know that production has its lots of challenges as well right you look at issues around insecurity you look at issues around you know the rising prices of the coral materials required in the poultry industry which is feed and it's a composition of maize and soil being you know our production is not up to what is required you know just a few months ago the federal government through the central bank of Nigeria had to even approve for the importation of maize granted you know you know that requirement to four major feed companies in Nigeria to be able to import the deficit amount of maize came to about 240,000 tons just to be able to meet with the requirements for poultry and other you know businesses in that space so if I have to really vote in it is really amazing that we have to as much as possible import maize just to cater to the poultry needs about the farmers involved in that particular sector what would have taught that we had enough arable land to you know to you know cultivate a maize so that they might be needed to get the feeds for poultry yeah it's a process you know that small although farmers in Nigeria would have to go through four major challenges to be able to come out on top productivity issues are very low because a lot of them don't use the right kinds of improved seeds that will give them the best yields okay post harvest losses are very very high some in some cases between 40 and 60 percent right and then access to finance we're getting there right it used to be almost non-existent but a lot of programs are coming in place that allows the farmers to be able to access finance from microfinance institutions you know the cbn's and cobra funds and a lot of banks are now open to providing that finance so I think we're beginning to get there by pumping the required amount of finance and training to the farmers to be able to increase their yields and meet up with these requirements as well as unlock even the opportunities in the arable lands that are not cultivated let's talk about them finance yet for another minute you know because you talked about the cbn um anchor borough's program because a lot of people would say they have been several enough such programs over the years in operation feeding nation and as much as we've had in the 70s and 80s but a whole lot of time this particular funding don't really get to the real farmers as it were I've even had some cases where people cite political farmers you know accessing this fund where the ordinary farmers who really need the funds don't get there so I mean I might not be able to necessarily speak about the political side of the funding going to a couple of people but what I know for a fact is the amount of finance in the agricultural space right now is a lot right and then the real farmers are beginning to access the funding now in terms of the degree at which they're able to access it and the ease of accessing it that's a different conversation and the government is also trying as much as possible to allow the private sector to be able to stimulate this growth as against you know artificially trying to stimulate that growth as a government's the government should focus on creating a regulatory framework that allows these businesses and these farmers to be able to thrive and then allow most of the financial institutions to be able to um actually go through the normal credit process to be able to give out credit to farmers that are worthy of accessing those that credits but I think the numbers are going up by today okay let me quote here a press release I read you said our dependence on imported food items also contributed to the pressure on foreign exchange I will find out how how we can change that particular narrative in a visa v poultry production when it comes to imported items would you do you think Nigerians will come to a stage where Nigerians would actually want to eat locally bread chicken as opposed to you know imported ones which already frozen so I think it's it's a function of availability um like food security has four pillars right availability accessibility fit for use and all of these things are done sustainably right so Nigerians I give a typical example when there was a ban on the importation of rice some few years ago Nigeria had an annual importation bill of about 744,000 metric tons right during the partial ban by the next year the numbers dropped to less than 70,000 metric tons as of today we barely import up to 25,000 metric tons of rice and we have been consuming rice so it had been able to stimulate local production of rice in various regions we're beginning to see private sector players foreign players even come into the market to start setting up rice meals and processing systems and backward integrating into production of things so I think that in the poultry space it's the same thing right if you have the poultry market is about like I said 1.6 trillionaire you know in size and more than 70% of it's imported if you put 70% on 1.3 1.6 trillion that's about 980 billionaire that you're exporting or rather you're importing into the country what that does is it staffles the local producers of these commodities right or this particular agricultural produce but when you're able to ease up and ensure that the production side of things can work you're able to put as much interventions in the production of commodities required for the feed millers to be able to make access the feeds to the poultry farmers fish farmers and the other guys playing in the livestock space you're able to stimulate that growth but shipping out 980 billion you know naira in opportunity right to other parties outside of the country is what creates the unemployment rates and you know the reduced production locally well I kind of I understand all of that let's just paint a scenario here the federal government did in fact you know banned all sort of importation of poultry and for instance that we have to you know produce all that we need to eat as a nation that's a poultry specifically now you know there's a huge opportunity you know and a lot of people are now getting into this particular industry let's talk about some of them they are boating it and you know for instance in the value chain so uh you know storage and all of that do we have all that it takes in terms of capacity in order to ensure that we can actually produce for a long time and over time we'll not be talking about we can't find them poultry in the market so I think that the capacity is increasing as the industry becomes you know more advanced right for example we just got into this space with a capacity of pushing in about four million birds you know and that in itself requires that we must have our production systems in place we must have our processing systems in place and then we must have our post processing systems in place to ensure that we're able to distribute the products as more players are beginning to get into this space and as private sector sees the benefits that comes with all of these opportunities the the space in itself will begin to advance to the level that is required but in the interim the systems I want you to enlighten us some more you talked about you intend to invest four billion there and for what I've heard that that was until 142 poultry plants across and three states and it will boost local poultry production by at least three million poultry birds per random I just want you to do the math here okay okay so typically we we it's not about we are planning to we have invested four billion you know and we have acquired 142 poultry plants that's a lot that's massive in three locations that with an annual capacity of a minimum of three million birds and we're able to max out at four million so what that does for us is we are able to have the capacity to employ a thousand five hundred people on our farms oh wow drop creation at that as well creation yeah we're able to train people on how poultry can be called so it's not rocket science right we tested the model and we've seen that even youths without you know agricultural backgrounds and knowledge on poultry production have the capacity to learn and move on from there so basically for us it's putting those parents into commercial purpose getting these youth entrepreneurs to be able to produce the required amount of volume and then processing and getting it into the market I think that's one of the things that we have seen comes with a set of challenges you know to ensure that we're running at 100 capacity but we keep building every single day and our job is to be able to expand that number drastically before 2025 but is it all glamorous is it all rosy as it were for instance I'm a school leaver and I'm fresh out of school and I I don't want to go through the rigors of looking for white color jobs and I just want to be my own entrepreneur and I want to get into poultry because I've seen a lot of people do that you know you know if you were to work us through it is it something that anyone could just come in or is it really challenging as it is so as with all forms of entrepreneurship right it comes with a set of challenges but what we've also seen our system has been able to do is we are able to handhold to these entrepreneurs and show them when we say brooding this is what brooding means you take them to the brooding house you see them what brooding truly means how you're able to care for the birds from day one to day 14 day 10 to day 14 and then you move them from the brooding house to the growing house and then you show them how to care for the birds when you see certain symptoms so it's about holding their hands because at the end of the day that's the training process that is required so it's not all rosy you know even with climate change and all of that we saw for instance in some of our pilots the scorching effect of the sun increase our mortality you know and what did we need to do we went back to local farmers that had local experiences and have been able to go around these issues in the last five to ten years and we learned so all of that experience is what you know these entrepreneurs will be able to try to unbundle to these entrepreneurs and you know carry them along in the entire process okay I read something somewhere about a project called Eclipse 2025 what's that about and what does it intend to achieve 2025 is about four years from now so I mean that's our ambitious target to see us growing a cumulative of 40 million birds by 2025 and it rests on that's that's that's that's literally 10 10 million birds annually the next four years yes you know as of today our capacity sits at three to four million birds per annum so it means we will need to grow at least by 16 160 percent 1600 percent to be able to meet up with that target so invariably now even the government provides some the right atmosphere you know for business to thrive that's the infrastructure you know the power the road and all of that can we come can we get to an extent where our poetry chicken order a poetry meter will not be like a luxury item for for most Nigerian because most right now most people tend to eat poetry you know apparently not what they could do like they leave they wanted to would all of these things that I mentioned now would we get to extent where Nigerians can actually you know go to the market and be able to buy poetry without having to you know pay an arm and a leg of course I think locally we're beginning to get it you know the pricing is beginning to come in our favor right is it because the last time I went to the market poetry was so expensive yeah I mean but I mean when I say the pricing is beginning to come in our favor is visa visa what is obtainable outside the country and also the cost of the impute on all of those numbers I think we're beginning to get it you know the more we're able to grow the market locally you know the more we're able to consolidate on the pricing and ensure that it is affordable for every Nigerian but poetry in itself is represents more than 40 percent of consumption so all right in 30 seconds I just want you to do some free lecture for Nigerians in case someone is watching and he's thinking of being an entrepreneur and he is saying that I don't really have so much cash in the world you advise him to do your camera is all right so typically it's there's there's access to lots of information there's access to funding from you know financial institutions we're also here to help and the most important part is to be able to make that decision to be a part of the agricultural space and then you know all the resources are available can be made can be made available to you and we're more than here to help thank you all right thank you so much indeed that's just some free lecture what you would have paid you know to get some sort of masterclass in the university we must say a very big thank you to you and Kennedy Obia Jullo he is and the CEO of an agricultural international many thanks for sharing your time your thoughts and of course you know trying to you know instill some sort of entrepreneurship in Nigerians we do appreciate it thank you so much we appreciate it as well all right as much as we can take but let's do it again next time I am Justin Al-Qadouni many thanks for watching