As commercial banks apportion the limited banknotes at their disposal, poultry farmers are stuck with large quantities of eggs they cannot sell as demand for eggs remains low.
Retail consumers have stuck to only necessities due to the lack of cash as recent times have been largely characterised with buying cash at premium prices from POS operators.
The situation has left many farmers struggling to make ends meet as the cost of production continues to rise.
“Presently, we are experiencing what is called egg glut, where the supply of eggs is higher than the demand,” Oluwaloyimika, a poultry farmer with Twitter handle (@am_ykay) said in a tweet.
“What has led to lower demand is that the final consumers are not buying eggs as before, due to no cash policy,” he added.
The scarcity of the naira has made it difficult for consumers to afford basic food items, including eggs, which have become increasingly expensive. This has led to a decline in demand, leaving many poultry farmers with excess stock and dwindling profits.
Chicken and egg production is a lucrative business until recently when the economy is hit by naira scarcity.
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“As the cash crunch coincides with poor network systems across banks and service providers, sometimes we go to buy things for the business and are there for minutes without end trying to pay them,” said Emmanuel Futughe, poultry manager, Tabai Farms, Abuja.
“It’s not like we don’t have the means to pay them, it’s just that the whole system is messy right now. And it’s the same thing with our own customers too.”
On Monday, the CBN said the old naira notes remain legal tender until December 31, 2023. This came after the presidency issued a statement on the same day, saying the apex bank had no reason not to obey the Supreme Court ruling on naira redesign.
Frustrated Nigerians seeking reprieve rushed to banks on Tuesday to withdraw cash after the order.
Our correspondents visited bank branches in parts of the country on the same day and found only a few commercial banks dispensing the old notes to customers over the ATMs, while the recent “over the counter long queues” remained.
At GT Bank in Obalende, the bank’s ATMs were dispensing N10,000 old notes to its customers while other banks’ customers could withdraw only N1000.
Cash is still scarce, as deposit money banks do not yet have enough of it.
The Nigerian government has been urged to take action to address the scarcity of naira and its impact on small-scale farmers.
The government has also been called upon to provide support for farmers through subsidies and other measures to help them weather the economic storm.
For now, the poultry farmers are left with no choice but to wait for the situation to improve.
They are hopeful that the government will take action to address the situation and provide much-needed support to help them keep their businesses afloat.
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