COVID-19: Studies in 7 states show poultry, fish farmers in trouble

As stakeholders dialogue way out Poultry and fish farmers across the county have been badly hit since the advent of covid-19 lockdowns across Nigeria in 2020, studies in seven states and the FCT have revealed. The research examined “the impact of COVID-19 and associated shocks on agri-food SMEs along the poultry and fish value chains” […]

• As stakeholders dialogue way out

Poultry and fish farmers across the county have been badly hit since the advent of covid-19 lockdowns across Nigeria in 2020, studies in seven states and the FCT have revealed.

The research examined “the impact of COVID-19 and associated shocks on agri-food SMEs along the poultry and fish value chains” at lateral, upstream, midstream and downstream levels.

The states assessed are Borno, Ebonyi, Kaduna, Kebbi, Niger, Oyo, Rivers and the Federal Capital Territory.

The research work, which was a product of collaboration funded by the CGIAR Research Programme on Policies Institutions, and Market and the USAID Nigeria mission under the Feed the Future Nigeria Agriculture Policy Activity, confirmed the pains many farmers who spoke with Daily Trust had earlier expressed.

The findings, published in November 2021 by the Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics, Michigan State University, USA, painted a grim picture that fish and poultry farmers are in trouble and need interventions.

During a research dissemination workshop in Kaduna jointly organized by Feed the Future Nigeria Agriculture Policy Activity and WorldFish, farmers, policymakers and other stakeholders met to discuss the findings and make policy recommendations to mitigate the impact and cushion the continued effects of COVID-19 on these subsectors.

Aisha Muhammad, Professor Saweda Liverpool-Tasie, Professor Oyinkan Tasie, Prof. Ben Belton and two other experts who conducted the study in the FCT, revealed four key findings on the impact of COVID-19 and associated policies on business operation in Abuja.

“The lockdown policies severely restricted business activities in the midstream and downstream of SMEs along the poultry and fish value chain in and around Abuja,” adding that the disruption of business operations has both effect on the urban and the peri-urban areas.

They also revealed that “the COVID-19 lockdown policies significantly affected firm employment decisions with important differences for male versus female owned enterprises. While employment by male owned business appear to have partially recovered, employment levels remain extremely low among female owned enterprises.”

Although they have identified that while hired labour used by non-small businesses appear to have partially resumed, employment levels remain extremely low among small enterprises.

And the last finding in Abuja showed that the agric SMEs support/assistance was extremely limited and female-owned ventures did not received support.

In Niger State, Dr. Balaraba Sule and Professor Saweda Liverpool-Tasie and others who studied the impact of COVID-19 and associated policies on business operations, by scale of business also discovered four key things.

“The COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdown policies affected days of operation for SMEs in poultry and fish value chains in Niger State. These effects were felt particularly strongly in lateral and downstream value chain segments and were more acute for non-small enterprises than small enterprises.

“Non-small businesses resume full operations post-lockdown, but the number of small businesses in operation declined in succeeding months, including medium to long-term effects of the lockdown and/or COVID-19 impacts in the economy,” they discovered.

Dr Sule and her team also found that “COVID-19 and associated policies severely affected employment decisions in businesses along the fish and poultry value chains. There was a steady decline in the number of regular workers employed by small businesses in the succeeding months after the lockdown period. This may be an indication of a severe long-term effect of the pandemic and its associated policies on business operations.”

They further discovered that businesses along the fish and poultry value chains in Niger State faced increasing challenges during and after the lockdown, adding that “despite these challenges, no value chain actor received assistance from any of the government agencies during the period.”

In Oyo State, Iveren Abagyeh-Igbudu and other researchers discovered three key outcomes on the impact of COVID-19 on farmers and associated policies on agribusiness operations.

They reported that though “Oyo State did not implement a full lockdown in response to COVID-19, SMEs in the state were significantly impacted by disruptions to their input and output supply, chains largely due to their interdependence on other states for inputs, output markets and other supporting services.”

“The challenges firms faced in Oyo State changed from supply chain disruptions (due to lockdown in other states) to financial challenges due to lower demand and increased default in payment among customers and the increase sales on credit adopted by SMEs in response to the early challenges with market access,” the report showed.

Mrs. Abagyeh-Igbudu during her presentation at the event, said “only three percent of the study sample received any assistance. Of those who received any assistance, 100 percent was from their social networks and not government.”

Umma Iliyasu Mohammed, the chairperson, Women Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture and Development, said with the findings, there was need to have a strategic form of intervention targeting just women as the current system is skewed against them.

“I will really love to see that kind of percentage for women farmers where only women can access because right now we are not accessing anything,” she said.

A fish and poultry farmer, Ibrahim Atama Nuhu, lamented that the effects of COVID-19-induced problems, including input cost, have already shut him out of business.

“Feeds we were buying for may be N6,000 in those days now go for over N12,000. That’s fish feed. How can you cope? And the price of fish, there has been no significant increase in the price. In those days when the feed cost was fairly down, you could produce a kilo of fish with less than N500. Now, you can’t produce this same fish at N1,000 because of the increase in the price of feeds. When you go to market and you want to sell your fish, nobody buys your fish for over N1200 per kilo and if you take the cost of production you are paying, how can you break even?” he asked.

With the findings, many participants said there was need for policies that will holistically address key issues of production, intervention, logistics for SMEs within the country.