Revolution in poultry business in Brazil: Big lesson for Nigeria

By Seye Adeniyi

Bird flu or no bird flu, poultry business is still booming in some countries more than others, especially in Europe all over the world as well as in some developing nations of the world. The reasons is not far fetched. For instance, poultry meats production has been rated one of the leadingagricultural and business activities in Europe in present times and the wind is blowing down to continent of Africa. South Africa for example is doing well in this agricultural business while Nigeria is also on the fast lane of becoming one of the poultry business giants of Africa.

Although the recent outbreak of bird flu seriously affect poultry business in many parts of the country, due to the ways the issue was “politicised” by some people and handled by both the government and some stakeholders in poultry industry, several complaints still continue to trail the ways and manners the government handled the bird flu saga with many poultry farmers still lamenting the failure of government to compensate them or inadequate compensation giving to some poulty farmers by the government.

Those complaining said they obeyed government order to kill their affected birds but there was not enough compensation from the appropriate authority. But despite all the noise about the bird flu saga especially the way at which it was orchestrated by the developed nations, Brazil, one of the poultry giants of the world continue to flouish, while latest report credited to Poultry International revealed that Brazil is not only known for soccer, the highly rated soccer nation now leading many countries of the world in terms of poultry meet exports.

Brazilian poultry industry, report has it is fighting hard to maintain its number one position. While facing serious criticism from several international quarters on its standard and poultry practices, leading poultry companies in the country are also battling each other to expand their influence and increase their export markets.

Poultry business in Brazil, Poultry International further reported, continue to metamorphosise and impressions of an industry undergoing tremendous growth and rapid change is been created everytime.

The report which was compiled by Jackie Linden with graphical illustrations on how Brazil is taking over the poultry meat exports to other countries of the world even steping ahead like USA said there is plenty to admire about Brazil’s poultry industry which other developing nations.

“The country is blessed with many advantages including plentiful and relatively cheap natural resources, but it has made the best of these to become the leading supplier of poultry meat to many protein - hungry countries from a distant also ran” position just a decade or so ago. Perhaps for these very reason, the Brazilian poultry industry’s revolution metamorphosis has attracted suspicion and criticism”, he stated.

However, going by the latest USDA statistics, the soccer giant country is ranked third in the world poultry products business most especially in terms of broiler meat production, with a provisional output of 10. 105 million tonnes of ready-to-eat equivalent in 2007.

Brazil, the USDA statistics also revealed, hold the same place in the ranking of turkey meat producers. This, the country achieved with an output of 320,000 tonnes. With broiler meat and turkey meat, Brazil’s said to be catching up with world leaders in poultry meet production and export.

The USDA Foreign Agricultural Services also forecasted that the world meat production will rise by 2.4 per cent in 2008 to 62.3 million tonnes (mt). USDA also stated that the output from Brazil is expected to increase faster by 4.4 per cent to 10.55 million tonnes (mt).

Furthermore, USDA Foreign Agricultural Services in their latest prediction also reported that global broiler meat export to expand by 4.2per cent to 7.48 million tonnes, but said Brazil’s growth may exceed the average. “Export are forecasted to rise by 6.7per cent to 3.1 million tonnes in 2008”.

Factors contributing to Brazil success in poultry business include vast arable area and favoured climate. The same factors paving way for Brazil poultry business/production is success also shared and enjoyed by Nigeria, but because we have abundant of crude oil, this has led to the neglect of our agricultural sector especially during the long years of military regime, stated veterinarians like Dr. Bimbo Oloye, and Deji Folutile while speaking with Tribune Agriculture recently.

Also commenting about the continous success of Brazil in agricultural sector especially in poultry business, a successful poultry farmer, Mr. Segun Adesina Olayiwola, said Nigeria also have favourable climate and agricultural friendly weather that not only support poultry business, but other livestock farming, but the problem with the country is that necessary attention is not been given to agricultural sector by the government and even majority of private individual investing in poultry business are not encouraged by government policies.

Look at what is currently happening in the market. There is intability in the prices of goods and commodities especially raw materials for poultry and livestock feeds. The feed millers are now struggling to survive and there is in consistency in government policies.

Prices of raw materials kept on flunctuating and many of the feed millers are running a diesel-driven economy because of energy problem especially electricity. Therefore, this is having great effects on poultry business and survival apart from Avian influenza palan”, he lamented.

The poultry farmer also said many poultry farmers are now quiting the business due to unfriendly economic atmosphere pervaiding the country.

Why antibiotic free poultry farming is the best

By Sade Oguntola

In the livestock industry, a basic thing people do to ensure that their animals, including poultry birds are in good health is to give them antibiotic. Antibiotics are substances that inhibit the growth of bacteria and related microorganisms by interfering with essential metabolic functions.

As the popularity of poultry protein increased over the last two decades, poultry farming all over the world also grew up by leaps and bounds, forcing the farming practices to become more and more intensive. Antibiotics helped immensely in controlling bacterial infections arising thereof.

Farmers believe that controlling bacterial infections with the use of antibiotics will ensure maximum productivity of the birds, if it is the layer bird, it will give at least 300 eggs in its lifespan or if it is a boiler bird attain the food conversion rate of 1.6 at 2.0 kilogramme body weight.

Meanwhile, modern bird, a product of cutting edge research in poultry breeding, nutrition and healthcare according to Mr. Niran Adegbamigbe, head, Agro Products and equipment of Animal Care Konsult Services, Ogere, is more susceptible to various infections on account of closed house system farmers run. The system deprives the birds of natural ventilation, causes over crowding that leads to high stress conditions.Also, being products that are genetically improved, the birds’ natural disease resistance ability is often compromise.

Given that now there are incidences of emerging and re-emerging disease outbreaks and scarcity of feeding stuffs, forcing farmers to use unconventional ingredients, he said that farmers had resulted to the use of many strategies to control outbreaks of diseases – use of vaccines, biosecurity at breeder, hatchery and farm level, and use of antibiotics.

While biosecurity and vaccines are well accepted and being practiced all over the world, the use antibiotics, despite its popularity is however under stringent scrutiny, according to Mr. Adegbamigbe during a lecture he gave at a workshop organised by Funtana Institute of Poultry Management and Technology, Ogere, recently.

He declared that recent finding have revealed that excessive and indiscriminate use of therapeutics lead to residues in the poultry products, similar to what happens with the continues dosing of antibiotic (microbial) growth promoters (AGPs) through feed.

Both “residues” later enter into the human system through consumption of poultry products. The impact of extensive use of antibiotics, according to him will continue to challenge human pathogens (of course at very low levels), making them mutate to become resistant to respective antibiotic families.

As a result, such families of antimicrobial at normal curative doses will start proving ineffective in human beings. Also, residues in poultry products may lead to allergic reactions among sensitive individuals in the society.

Is the possibility of totally antibiotic free farming extremely remote? Attempts at poultry rearing without antibiotic have proven to be unsuccessful for several reasons. Mr. Adegbamigbe said this is because the death rate in broiler and layer grow out cycle could rise to phenomenally high levels (as much as 15 per cent), uniformity, of the flock could be hampered and also the feed conversion ratio could be adversely affected.These are variables that affect how many eggs the flock will lay at the end of a cycle and invariably the take home of the farmer.

Meanwhile, the expert said farmers can practice partially antibiotic free farming using the following- stringent biosecurity measures at all levels, treating bacterial infections with correct dose of antibiotics only after carrying out appropriate analysis of the problem, and replacing feed grade antibiotic (microbial) growth promoters with safer biological and chemical products like prebiotics and probiotics.

The use of probiotics and prebiotics is an emerging trend in poultry health protection and it was designed keeping in mind the concern for food safety. The term probiotics is derived from the word “probios,” meaning life. It entails direct feeding of live microorganisms, whether in the form of a paste, liquid or powder. A novel probiotic marketed by Animal Care Services Konsult (Nig) Limited is Gutpro. This is to help ensure a healthy gut, thus ensuring better digestion and assimilation of nutrients from feed.

The normal microorganisms in the gut are severely disturbed by continued use of AGPs in the poultry feed, thereby seriously impairing the gut integrity. However what Gutpro, does is to increase the total count of beneficial bacterial in the gut, ensure competitive exclusion of pathogens and maintain the correct gut acid level. This is translated to better growth and an improved immune response.

The prebiotics is however different in its working from probiotics. It contains naturally derived extract from the cell wall of yeast. Incorporating prebiotics into the feed ensures it binds pathogens such as Salmonella and E. coli that may be present, help eliminate mycotoxins, cause proliferation of beneficial gut microbes and enhance immunity of the bird.

For the bird, aside helping to improve the growth rate, the need to use antibiotics becomes unnecessary. In comparison with antibiotics, it has no residues, it is totally biodegradable, specifically binds pathogen and render them inactive, unlike antibiotics that kills both desirable and undesirable bacteria in the gut of the bird. The fear of emergence of resistance to it is also ruled out.

Basically, the prebiotics is added to the feed. It requires no withdrawal period as in case of AGPs, prevents colonisation of bad pathogens in the gut of the bird, stimulate the immunity of the gut to disease causing bacteria and promote growth of beneficial bacteria such as the lactic acid bacteria.

A thoughtfully and wisely designed combination of prebiotic and probiotic in addition to adequate biosecurity will certainly move closer towards antibiotic free poultry farming, he declared.