Nigerian poultry farmers are abandoning factory feed and mixing their own rations on the farm, a shift driven by stubbornly high prices that refuse to fall in step with raw-material costs. Maize and soybeans, the main ingredients, have shed more than 60 per cent of their value, yet commercial feed makers have trimmed tags by barely 10 per cent. Feed accounts for 70 per cent of the cost of keeping birds, so the gap is decisive. Martha Adegoroye, who runs a farm in Ogun State, says every kilogram she blends herself saves ₦1,500, a margin that has shored up her profits and kept egg and chicken prices steady for shoppers.
Sunday Ezeobiora, president of the Poultry Association of Nigeria, confirms the trend is sweeping the sector, putting factory-made feed in retreat and eroding demand for the big producers. Feed manufacturers counter that electricity, transport, additives and imported packaging still drain their books; the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria says power alone swallows 40 per cent of production costs, with diesel spikes making the pain worse. A United States Department of Agriculture report notes that orders from large feed mills have flat-lined, while sceptics like former Animal Science Association president Taiwo Adeoye warn that farmers who ignore hidden expenses may discover their homemade mix is no bargain. After a contraction in 2024, Nigeria's poultry industry is crawling through 2025 with minimal growth.
Feed millers are clinging to a 10 per cent price cut while their raw materials have crashed by 60 per cent, a margin grab so blatant that Martha Adegoroye and her colleagues have simply walked off the trading floor and into the feed-mixing shed. The mills' excuse sheet—diesel, forex, additives—cannot hide the fact that power, their biggest headache, is a cost they have borne for years without pricing maize at ₦1,500 per kilogram above farmers' homemade version.
This is a quiet revolt against Nigeria's middle-manufacturing model, where processors expect farmers to subsidise their inefficiencies. By shifting 70 per cent of production costs back into their own hands, farmers are not just saving money; they are starving an oligopoly that has used imported inputs and opaque pricing to hold the food chain hostage. The USDA's flat demand curve is the first official proof that the hostage-takers are now the ones missing meals.
For consumers, the payoff is already visible: egg and chicken prices have stabilised despite inflation elsewhere. But the bigger win is structural—every bag of feed a farmer mixes is a vote for local sourcing, lower import bills and a poultry value chain that no longer kneels to a few millers with forex invoices. If the trend holds, the sector's anaemic 2025 growth figure could flip into a genuine rebound led by farmers who have finally learnt that the factory gate is optional.
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