By Fatima Muraina

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poultry farmers in the country have kicked against the decision of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to sustain ban on the importation of maize, stating that its effect on the nation’s food and livestock industry would be highly injurious.
A cross section of poultry farmers who spoke in separate interviews with The Hope who craved anonymity stated that the decision of the CBN is targeted at making a minute number of maize merchants in a particular region of the country to be rich at the detriment of large number of poultry farmers who depend largely on maize to run their farms.
One of the poultry farmers said:”All things being equal, there would not have been any reason for maize importation, but stopping maize importation would spell doom for the nations’s food and livestock industry especially poultry.
“The whole world including the government of Nigeria is aware that more than 80 per cent of arable crop producers have vacated farming business due to activities of herders, grazing on farmers’ crops, killing, maiming, raping etc.
If not for herders destruction, Nigeria would have been more food sufficient but the reverse is now the case as farmers are unable to pay back bank loans. Many farmers are in serious bank debt while many have been killed and many maimed and disabled.”
Another farmer described the CBN policy on maize importation ban as a very bad one, stating that it is to make some set of people from a particular region of the country rich. She stated that the price of the maize bought from the CBN recently was on the high side.
Another poultry farmer posited that:”Since we can not produce much here, the CBN should allow the importation of maize. The scarcity of maize is having serious effect on feedmill and that is making the poultry business threading the path of collapse,” she said.