Protein is the second most
abundant compound found in the human body. Just as water is needed by the body to function optimally, protein is found in every cell and tissue, and along with healthy fats, it plays many critical roles in keeping the body alive and healthy.
From the contraction of the muscles of the body which allows for body movement, to the contraction of specialized muscle that controls organ functions such as the heart, digestive movements, and elimination of unwanted elements in the body, the place of protein in the human body has become highly indispensable.
Even where the bones could be said to be predominantly calcium, the mineral is bounded together with protein, while also constituting the framework that holds nerves together. From the blood, through the body organs and up to the skin, all have structural proteins.
Suffice it to say that the protein’s presence in the body, provides the building blocs needed for all tissue repair, critical enzymes and hormones needed for all of metabolic functions and antibodies that help defend body against infection. Proteins are vital to all living processes and undertake a wide range of functions quite essential to sustain life.
The human body needs 20 different amino acids to be able to produce all the proteins it requires. While the body can comfortably provide 10 out of the 20, it depends on external food intake to be able to obtain the remaining 10 amino acids. This explains why the need to consume more of proteinous diets has become imperative.
It must be noted that although, plant foods such as grains, nuts, beans and vegetables can supply the body with proteins, it is, but a limited array of amino acids except by a combination of foods.  But, animal products such as chicken, fish, beef, venison, duck, turkey, pork contain virtually all the essential amino acids needed to keep the body fit and healthy.
Obviously, animal products have been discovered to be the best bet for adequate protein intake and free range organic poultry, duck, turkey, eggs from healthy chickens are usually handy for this purpose.
If therefore, the poultry business can be a handy bridge between the need of a people and the availability of a solution to such a need, the onus then lies on the industry, to acquire a new mindset that will favour increase and improvement of productivity toward meeting consumers’ expectation.
According to Philip Wilkinson, in his presentation titled: “What if there was A Better Way? Meeting Consumer Needs Through Sustainable Intensification,” at Alltech’s Annual breakfast meeting, during the International Production And Processing Expo (IPPE) in January, “each poultry corporation needs to have a quality assurance mark that people recognise, possess core value and endure.”
Wilkinson sees the poultry farmer in a position to answer the consumers’ bugging question of “What Should We Eat?” Already in a generally favourable environment, all that the poultry producer requires is flexibility and market orientation and the key drivers will be delivering a tasty, safe and attractive product grown in a manner consistent with consumer expectations.
“I’m optimistic about the poultry sector’s future,” Wilkinson said. “Poultry, undoubtedly in my views, is going to be the leading meat protein to help feed an additional three billion people by 2050.”
Barbados’ annual consumption of poultry meat has been estimated at around 15million kilogrammes. Local production of poultry meat in 2010 was estimated at 14.1million kilogrammes which demonstrates the local farmers potential to supply the demand.
The President of the Barbados Egg And Poultry Producers Association (BEPPA) Wendell Clarke, was quoted in 2009 as saying that, “local poultry producers are more than ready and willing to satisfy all the needs of the local market.
“We can definitely satisfy all the needs of the local market,” he said. We have the capacity to do it. We have actually done it before, we can supply what the local market needs.”
Back here in Nigeria, it is quite possible. Like Wilkinson said, a change of mindset and the will to succeed is all that is needed so that the young farmer does not get stuck on the way and decides to put a halt to the hitherto ambition to be established. More so, every game is played by rule, without which, success will only be sighted from afar and never to be approached.
Obviously, the level of acquaintance any potential business man should have with his business of choice msut go beyond the mere “spelling” and “pronouncement” of such business names as is the case with many, this of course, is not a condemnation of partnership in business where supposed experts are co-opted to build a business.
To many potential retirees, it is “poultry farming after retirement,” which is no less a noble idea, but the need to guide one’s lions against the storms becomes imperative especially when huge life savings are involved.
Poultry structures are constructed in specific directions that only the experts can tell, a mistake in the erection of structures, becomes a foundational error which consequence stands to hunt the initiative so long as it lasts, perhaps, you call it first step to failure.
Anyone treading in an unfamiliar terrain, exercises great caution, little wonder in the academic world, every caring process begins with simple “ABC,” from the simple to the complex, but those who count the number of eggs and meat in established farmers’ baskets and tables without due consideration to what transpired from when there were no eggs and meat to the period of supposedly bountiful harvest of eggs and meat are rather beclouded by their judgments of the content of the baskets and tables, what gross beneficiaries! – Perhaps, this could be seen as a second step to failure since every business calculation must first deduct the cost from the gross for an eventual net which translates to the real gain.
It is important that every business be started in a small manageable scale, to gradually grow to any desired magnitude bearing  in mind that such business is not only intended to service the selfish ends of the initiator, but to also be optimally applied to maximize its contribution to the socio-economic advancement of its immediate environment as well as the nation at large.
The local farmer must cease to see himself as a master of all, the administration of poultry drugs are strictly the exclusives of the veterinary staff and results are got when the right personnel are used, attempts by sharp farmers who tend to do what they say the vet personnel do for certain health cases, had not  yielded any positive results because some of these birds develop high resistance to certain drugs after being used over time and it is only the approved personnel that would know when this is the case and what alternative therapy to apply.
The local poultry industry definitely has the potentials to meet the masses’ protein need if the games are played by the rules.

Sylvia ThankGod-Amadi