CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE POULTRY VALUE CHAIN IN NIGERIA: ISSUES, EMERGING EVIDENCE, AND HYPOTHESES

The Nigerian poultry sub-sector is experiencing rapid growth and transformation. This is linked to the transformation of diets as incomes and urbanization increase. Poultry is both a protein and income source for many households and the poultry subsector in Nigeria is quite complex. This complexity has several dimensions. First, there is a plethora of segments of the supply chain from inputs to consumers (from upstream to downstream, there are the segments of maize and other ingredient farmers, feed mills, hatcheries of day-old-chicks, the poultry farmers, poultry wholesalers, processors, and retailers). Second, there is a multiplicity of scales of the firms and farms in those segments – small, medium, and large. Third, there are several crucial socioeconomic characteristics of the people managing and working for the farms and firms – the gender and age of actors. Fourth, there is great range and variation in the spatiality of the poultry and egg system, as the above segments span the zones of Nigeria, such as eggs being moved from farmers in the South to retailers in the North, maize from farmers in the north to feed mills in the South, spent layers from farmers in the Southwest to processors in the East, and so on. These four dimensions have significant implications for the dynamics and sustained growth of the subsector (LiverpoolTasie et al., 2016)