NIGERIA – Olam International, through its subsidiary Olam Hatcheries Limited has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a global veterinary health company, Ceva Santé Animale S.A to boost poultry production in Nigeria.

The agreement will see Ceva Santé Animale S.A, which specializes in pharmaceutical products and vaccines for companion poultry provide further support for Olam’s hatchery vaccination programme for day-old-chicks (DOC).

Four main areas of technical cooperation and collaboration would be identified by the two partners through a joint committee (consisting of experts and managers) that will be formed.

In addition to supplying vaccine, vaccination equipment and offering technical assistance, the French company will work hand-in-hand with Olam to train the latter’s managers and field employees.

Training program will cover topics such as proper vaccination techniques, on-farm diagnosis and Lab analysis, with a possibility of extending the initiative to select customers of Olam’s feed and DOC at a later stage.

Other areas of collaboration include upgrading of Olam’s Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory (“Lab”) at Kaduna and development of new private labs in other regions of Nigeria to provide cost-effective and timely diagnostic support for Poultry and other animal husbandry farms.

Olam and Ceva are also considering setting up research projects locally and internationally by involving other scientific partners for deeper epidemiological evaluation of diseases and appropriate solutions for Nigeria’s poultry sector.

“We are delighted to be partnering Olam in its journey to grow its animal feeds operations.

This partnership is very much in line with our ‘Together, beyond animal health’ vision, one key element of which is to help ensure the supply of healthy food for a growing world population.

It also continues our history of investment in Africa, where leading countries such as Nigeria will need to deploy the latest available agricultural technologies to maximise the production of food in-country,” said Dr Marc Prikazsky, Chairman and CEO of Ceva.

Scaling animal feed production

Sharad Gupta, Senior Vice President of Olam Grains and Head of Animal Feeds & Protein noted that the partnership was timely as it is critical in expanding the company’s animal feed operations in Nigeria and beyond.

The development addresses the need for vital veterinary and scientific support in this sector even as commercial poultry production in Nigeria continues to grow.

It further cements the company’s investments in animal feed production especially poultry.

To cement its investment in the animal feed production, Olam inaugurated a poultry feed mill and day-old-chick facilities in Kaduna Estate, Northern Nigeria in September last year.

Its investment plans in Africa include expanding into fish farming in West Africa plus a considering to debut into the rest of the continent where protein demand is rising.