IBADAN, Nigeria — Salam Habib cannot remember the last time he had a good night’s sleep. He often lays awake mulling over his waning ability to provide feed for his birds.
The 40-year-old poultry farmer from Ede, western Nigeria, is grappling with the waves of grain shortages that have increased the price of maize — the main ingredient in feed formulation — from 200,000 Nigerian naira ($268.64) per metric ton to more than 500,000 naira ($671.59), forcing him to buy at a rate that makes it impossible to recoup his investment.
He spends about 444,000 naira to feed his one-thousand-strong breeder farm weekly but confronted with the eventuality of running out of money to buy more and defaulting on the monthly return he pays for a bank loan he took to fund his poultry project, he made a call for help on X — formerly known as Twitter — asking people to save his drowning business in August. Many pitied him but only a few made donations.
About the author
Pelumi Salako
Pelumi Salako is a Nigerian journalist covering culture, technology, inclusive economies, and development. His works have appeared in Al Jazeera, The Guardian, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, NPR, Foreign Policy, and elsewhere. He holds a B.A. in History and International Studies from the University of Ilorin.
