Amo Farm Sieberer Hatchery, AFSH, and the Edo State government are collaborating to give women their pride of place in the society. Through Amo Noiler initiative, the company hopes that its vision of empowering rural poor, especially women, in Nigeria, would be realized. The initiative was launched during the International Women’s Day celebration in Benin, Edo State, yesterday.
Amo Noiler is a multicoloured dual purpose crossbreed suitable for back yard rearing. According to Ayoola Oduntan, chief executive officer, CEO, AFSH, the breeder stocks are well vaccinated and maintained under stringent Bio security to produce a chick with good livability and excellent performance.
Oduntan explained that, “The offspring will have a good disease resistance like a native chicken and the fast growing character of the bird helps in less brooding efforts, less fat, tasty and higher meat yield compared to native birds. The meat is tougher than the commercial broiler meat and they are reared with no antibiotics and chemicals as they can be transformed into ‘organic chicken’. The dual purpose birds have all the attributes of native, faster growth, less fat and more eggs that suits small farmers. Their slow growth is said to depend on low inputs and meet the gap of nutritional security of developing countries. For instance, one bird per week can supply 500gms chicken per head every week. This also can make a huge difference in meeting the per capita consumption of the country,” he said.
The initiative gives rural women the opportunity to improve their standard of living by enhancing their employment and income opportunities. This is in line with Amo Group’s belief that poultry gives poor people the added advantage of regular day to day cash returns from selling eggs and birds to meet the occasional family exigencies. Hence, AFSH is partnering the First Lady of Edo State to contribute their quota to poverty alleviation and improving nutritional condition of widows and less privileged people in the state. Ultimately, the scheme will revive the abandoned backyard and semi-intensive farming system that constitute about 70 per cent of total bird population.
Betsy Obaseki, wife of Edo State governor, explained that the milestone provides another opportunity to re-emphasise the need to dismantle the barrier, which prevents women from realising their potentials and contribute fully to the economic and socio political life of their communities. “With our partnership with Amo group, I believe female presence will be recognised and our women given more important roles because a society desirous of development cannot afford to treat them with less significance, the issues and voices of half of its population. We must once again bring to the fore the challenges surrounding the education of the girl child, which is a vital component of the development of the society. If we are to sustain the effort made at empowering our women, we must continually use the instrument of education like what Amo group brings on board to close the gap,” she said.
Giving details of the business model of the initiative, Bunmi Oluwalasinu, Country Coordinator, Amo Noiler, is hopeful that the programme would help eradicate poverty and malnutrition in the country, especially in the rural areas. She explained that the commercial NOILER chicks will be produced by the company owned hatcheries in different parts of the country and supply the day old chicks to Mother Units across the country. The day old chicks are brooded and reared in these Mother Units for 5 weeks and all vaccinations will be completed in these units. The birds with complete feathering, weighing 475 to 500 gms will be redistributed to small holder farmers for back yard farming.
“The government ensures 40 birds are given to each beneficiary (500 widows), which will be twenty males and twenty females. The male birds would be ready for self-consumption or sale by 13 to 14 weeks, while female birds can be kept for egg production. Their Unique Selling Proposition of the initiative is that the birds can live on scavenging, kitchen waste and unused grains,” she said.