The Minister of Food and Agriculture Bryan Acheampong has announced government initiatives aimed at giving local poultry production a major boost as part of Ghana’s five-year food security strategy.
According to him, the government is providing poultry farmers with day old chicks, vaccines and poultry feeds in order to meet demand on the market.
Statistics reveals over US$600 million worth of chicken is dumped onto the Ghanaian market annually. This has compounded the woes of Ghana’s poultry industry, which is on the verge of collapse due to lack of regulation to check the influx of foreign chicken onto the market.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Asaase News as part of the Farmers’ Week exhibition in Accra on Tuesday (28 November), Acheampong said the government is hoping to meet Ghana’s annual poultry consumption by 2028.
“We consume 324,000 metric tonnes of poultry annually and we produce 15,000 metric tonnes. To be able to move that and feed Ghanaians this Christmas, the government has put in a system to provide vaccines, 4.5 million day old chicks and starter pack feed to ensure that we move this 15,000 metric tonnes to 23,000 metric tonnes by the end of this year,” Acheampong told his host Benjamin Offei-Addo.
He said the figure will go high in 2024.
“Next year, we are providing vaccines and starter pack feed and 18 million day old chicks to support what the poultry farmers are already providing, and that will move us to about 35,000 metric tonnes annually. So, we are moving it intentionally by providing the required support by rehabilitating 300 poultry farms and making sure that the 15 anchor farmers that is the processors are up and running.
“So, if you look at our five-year food security plan, we are moving poultry from 15,000 metric tonnes to 23,000 metric tonnes, then to 75,000 metric tonnes, to 150,000 metric tonnes, to 275,000 and then finally to 344,000 metric tonnes annually by the end of 2028. We have done same for maize, soya and plantain,” Acheampong added.
For his part, the Minister of Finance Ken Ofori-Atta said the government will continue to support the agriculture sector to ensure food security in the country.
“Without a strong agriculture base, you can’t have the industries growing. We have provided GHC5.2 billion for agriculture in the budget to make sure that we can feed ourselves, which is food security… Subsidies are things that we do and we will continue to do until we get down the value chain,” Ofori-Atta said.
Credit: Asaaserad
