CROWN FEEDS AND LIVESTOCK HISTORY

After her incorporation in the year 2000, Crown feeds and livestock began operations, three years after in 2003 with a staff strength of about ten and just a four tons per hour feed mill, two pen houses and an office block of about six rooms located at its site one office in Ogbewelle Quarters issele-uku, Delta state.

By 2005, the late Obi of Issele-uku, His Highness, Obi Henry Ezeagwuna donated an old RCC yard to the Chairman of Crown Feeds and Livestock Limited, Chief Ike Odoe and asked him to use it to do something for the people of Issele-uku. Hence Chief Ike Odoe decided as the chief promoter of the farm to expand the operations of the farm to the new site.

From just about 15 staff, the number continued climbing and by 2008, the intervention of the Federal Government helped Crown feeds secure her first N215 million Agricultural loan through Agric Bank.

With the help of our then automated Auras Poultry cages, we repaid the loan on record time by 2012and expanded into parents Stock and hatching of day old chicks.

Our birds and table eggs sold all over Nigeria till even Maiduguri and Kano- we had a depot in Kano. Our commercial pens produced between 3000-3500 on the average daily and we had distributors always at the farm for one thing or the other.

By this time, our staff number on the pay roll rose to above 250 workers.

We took a second loan of N300million from the Central Bank of Nigeria in 2012 and also repaid it in record time in October 2016. The same Year of 2016, His Excellency, Dr Ifeanyi Okowa awarded Crown Feeds and livestock Limited, the best innovative farm in the whole of Delta State as Delta celebrated her 25th years anniversary and presented the farm a plaque.

As the Federal government announced the ban of imported frozen chicken into the country especially through our land borders, we saw an immediate opportunity there and quickly built a processing facility that could employ about 60 workers in situ and over two hundred farmers through out growers farmers scheme but we were already struggling as the recession gripped the economy, the prices of the raw materials we use for feed production tripled especially maize which makes up 50 per cent of the total feed cost.

The dollar went very high and we couldn’t afford to buy quality protein feed additives like Methionine and Lysine and bone and shell formers like Dicalcium phosphate (DCP).

The same high cost of the Dollar led to scarcity of genuine raw materials and everybody turned to sub standard products including the suppliers we relied on for years.

Our birds showed severe signs of calcium deficiency and lack of energy because of the high cost and scarcity of maize. We trudged on till we finished the loan repayment in late 2016.  By early 2017, the scarcity continued and hit even the veterinary drugs market. 

We lost over 60,000 birds and didn’t have money to replace our stock. We closed the hatchery down and sacked all the workers; we sacked eight managers and some supervisors.

We reduced our work force by one third but what do we do with the massive infrastructure on the ground? We applied for another N300million loan from CBN, which was granted by May 2017. We are trying to come back to business and we are in the process of restocking our birds- 135,000 for both layers and parent stock. We do not have the funds to produce commercial feeds and we do not have the funds to grow and fatten broiler frozen chicken, which is in high demand.

CBN Asaba had contacted us to partner with some farmers they are giving small loans, the ministry of Agriculture had also contacted us for the same thing but we have not been able to do that because of shortage of funds.

The six months moratorium on the current CBN facility is too short and too small as we are just about to hit the ground judging by the fact that the farm is starting a new.

At full capacity, Crown feeds and livestock Limited / Crown Hatchery Enterprises can employ over 500 staff and we have about 100 hectares of unutilized land that we have secured from the natives.

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