The animal feed industry is capable of generating an estimate of over N800 billion for Nigeria as consumption is increasing daily, Daily Sun reports.
Presently, the total supply of all the locally produced feedstock does not appear to be sufficient to meet demands, especially with respect to the animal protein supplements that are currently imported.
The global animal feed market can be segmented into five divisions based on livestock: poultry, swine, ruminant, aquaculture and others, and the cost of their feeding is on the high side especially the pet animals, which are also known as companion animals.
The major ingredients in animal feed are maize and soybeans. Other raw materials that can be used to produce animal feed include groundnut, sorghum, and cassava and the major diets ingredients include cereals, fats and oils, which provide the protein and energy required for animals to maintain good health.
Findings have revealed that indirect devaluation of the naira had impacted negatively on the major raw materials for producing animal feed, especially the maize and soybean.
Also, the Alltech Global Feed ranking in 2015 put Nigeria as one of the world’s largest emerging animal feeds producers with a better opportunity to penetrate the international animal feeds export market.
The ranking put Nigeria’s feed sector as number 40 in the world out of 130 leading animal feed producing countries in the world, representing a significant progress from the previous ranking of number 51.
The Registrar of the Nigerian Institute of Animal Science, NIAS, Dr. Oyedele Oyesiji, who announced the ranking recently, said there was a significant rise in the livestock sector in 2014 and 2015, particularly in aquaculture production and the poultry meat sector.
In 2015, NIAS statistics revealed that Nigeria hit 5.3 million metric tonnes of animal feeds with the following breakdown: egg, 3.1 million metric tonnes; chicken meat,1.08 million metric tonnes; aquaculture, 647,750 metric tonnes; pork, 265,000 metric tonnes; milk, 53,000 metric tonnes; beef, 41,250 metric tonnes; pet foods, 35,000 metric tonnes respectively.
