Support for poultry industry in the offing

Government is planning support to rejuvenate the broiler sector as part of efforts to ensure that the country becomes efficient in meeting the rising demand for animal products.

Under the proposal 20 million broilers will be produced locally during the first year, and the number will reach about 100 million broilers in the fifth year.

Government will also help poultry farmers to get subsidised production inputs such as feed and drugs to enable them produce, process, store and market locally-produced chicken in the country.

This arrangement according to Dr. Hanna Louisa Bisiw, Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture, will ultimately reduce the import of meat and livestock products into the country.

She was speaking during the launch of RE3, a new natural poultry and livestock feed-additive from Canada, which has been introduced to the country by Boris B’s Farms and Veterinary Supplies Ghana Limited and Best Environmental Technologies.

Over the last five years, chicken imports into the country cumulatively accounted for 74.2 percent of Ghana’s total meat import of 521,291 metric tonnes, and 36.5 percent of the 127,038 metric tonnes of locally produced meat within the same period.

In 2013, meat available for consumption in the country from both local and foreign imported sources was about 225,000 metric tonnes. This figure is still not sufficient to satisfy the yearly national meat requirement of about 300,000 metric tonnes.

Dr. Bisiw observed that given the country’s increasing population, the national annual meat requirement is likely to increase -- and noted that the increase in demand for meat products makes a case for profitable business in the livestock sub-sector.

It is in line with this that she said MoFA is working diligently toward revitalisation of the poultry industry by encouraging local production, with the aim to augment domestic production from the current of 30 percent to 80 percent of national requirement by year 2016.

She lauded the move by Boris B’s Farms and Veterinary Supplies Ghana Limited, and Best Environmental Technologies to introduce RE3 into the country -- and added that it will create jobs through the value chain in services associated with the products.

Mr. Boris Baidoo, Chief Executive Officer of Boris B’s Farms and Veterinary Supplies Ghana Limited, said the company’s commitment to provide quality services and products to the poultry and livestock industry in the country necessitated its partnership with Best Environmental Technologies to bring RE3 to farmers in the country.

He said his company intends to establish and operate a feed mill to produce quality feed for the poultry market at an affordable rate to alleviate the plight of farmers.

Mr. Baidoo appealed to government to include eating of an egg a day in the ongoing school feeding programme, taking into consideration the health and economic benefits that the average Ghanaian schoolchild and poultry farmers will derive from the initiative.