ibironkeeniola 
Increased maize and soybeans production are among the most urgently needed work in Nigeria, as livestock producers face feed crisis.
Livestock farmers under the auspices of the Poultry Association of Nigerian (PAN) have requested the Federal Government to save the poultry industry from imminent collapse which the industry faces as a result of an unabated rise in the prices of birds feeds and concentrates used to feed chickens.
PAN President, Ezekiel Ibrahim, said producers were still battling shortage of maize to meet feed requirements.
He explained that the feed input such as soya beans were going out of reach of an average poultry farmer with the price of the commodity now increased from N115,000 to N215,000.
During the lockdown, he maintained that scarce supplies and high prices on feed market affected thousands of poultry farmers as the COVID-19 pandemic made it difficult for them to go to their farms and for millers to distribute enough feed among poultry farms at a guaranteed price.
He noted that the importation of 262,000 metric tonnes of maize saved Nigeria from a food crisis.
He said PAN was in support of the maize import as part of the measures by the Federal Government to bridge the supply gap forced on farmers by several factors, including flooding, which has ravaged several farms and the COVID-19 pandemic.
A transformation from small-scale subsistence farms to mechanised, more commercially viable maize and soybeans farms is essential, say experts.
Currently, mechanisation levels on farms across Nigeria are very low. Without mechanised agriculture, experts say, productivity suffers drastically, lowering farmers’earnings.
This was the view of the Managing Director of Niji Foods, Mr Kolawole Adeniji, a cassava farmer, who went into maize production. He believes maize farming is lucrative. He planted a 100-acre of maize and the outcome was a disaster. He attributed this to irrigation challenges and high costs of production. Successful mechanisation, according to him, is key to tackling maize and soybeans shortage challenges.
While no machine can replace the human touch needed for crops to flourish, Adeniji said mechanisation will help to scale the existing workforce and ease the burden of labour shortages. Otherwise, he continued, maize and soybeans farming would not be profitable.
He said maize and soybeans output could be increased if policy makers and other stakeholders take mechanisation serious. Increases in productivity, according to him, start from planting all the way to storage and processing.
He pointed out that soybeans produced were lost, mostly because of inefficient post-harvest handling and lack of processing equipment.
Mechanisation, he posits, was not only for tilling land, but also for planting, harvesting, processing and storage of produce.
With a tractor, he said, a field that might take 40 days to prepare for planting by hand could be prepared in eight hours.
He said farmers have had to innovate with a singular focus to maximising their return on investment (ROI) potential. Such efforts, replicated across the country, he added, could push the frontiers of agricultural productivity. But governments need to increase investments in the sector.
SOURCE: THE NATION