The Enugu State Government is generating not less than N1.48 billion from poultry farming annually.

The Commissioner for Agriculture, Mr Michael Eneh, made the disclosure in Enugu on Wednesday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the one anniversary of the current administration.

The commissioner said that the state had two hatcheries set up under the Commercial Agriculture Development Programme, which has been injecting 360,000 day-old-chicks into the market every month.

“Up to this time, these are the only hatcheries in the whole of the South East and South-South.

“The poultry industry in the state is now a huge market, generating annual revenue of over N1.48 billion in the state and creating over 150,000 jobs along the value chain.

“The implication of this is that the price of a day old chick has dropped in the state from N250 to N100.”

He said that the World Bank through the intervention of the state government had supported 84 commercial poultry farmers in all value chain enterprises with N214.96 million.

Eneh said that within the same time, the World Bank through its grant scheme supported 94 maize farmers with N141 million.

“The World Bank also supported 1,709 farmers under the FADAMA III Additional Financing Scheme with N89.5 million.

“For this last farming season, those farmers produced a total of 1,630 metric tonnes of paddy rice valued at N125 million.

“This has impacted positively on the economy of our state.”

The commissioner said that no fewer than 36,000 direct jobs and 43,000 indirect jobs had been created in the state under the various agricultural schemes in the state.

Eneh said that the state government was in support of the move by the Federal Government to ban the importation of rice into the country as Nigeria had the capacity to produce same.

He said that the state government had through the US$25 million FADAMA III Additional Financing Scheme established a state of the art rice mill in Adani, Uzouwani LGA of the state.

According to him, the aim is to encourage rice farmers, but the rice to adequately feed the mill is not yet there.

The commissioner maintained that local rice was better and more nutritious than foreign ones. (NAN)

•Photo shows Enugu Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi.

Update news