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The Ghana National Association of Poultry Farmers has described worrying government’s inability to put proper measures in place to address the collapsing industry upon a series of consultations with the industry players.
According to the Association, the neglect of the industry by successive governments over the years is the cause of the high importation of frozen chicken into the country thereby putting pressure on our local currency “Cedi”, especially at this time the country is in economic crisis.
More than 600,000 tonnes of frozen chicken were imported into the country in 2021, research by the Ghana National Association of Poultry Farmers (GNAPF) has revealed.
The data, sourced from the European Union (EU), indicated that 569 million pieces of frozen chicken were imported into the country last year, translating into $600 million. The development has left the local poultry industry with two percent of the market share of chicken, which is controlled by imports with 98 percent.
In an attempt to revive the industry, President Akufo-Addo on June 25, 2019, launched “Rearing for Food and Jobs” which is one of the government’s modules flagship agricultural programs christened Planting for Food and Jobs.
The objective of the 5-year program is to develop a competitive and more efficient livestock and poultry industries that would increase domestic production, reduce the importation of products and contribute to employment generation and the improvement of livelihoods of livestock and poultry value chain actors and the national economy.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Daily Searchlight’s Collins Fosu Appiah on “Ghana’s Economic Crisis and its Impact on the Poultry Industry”, Bono Regional Organizer of the Association who doubles as Sunyani East Municipal Vice Chairperson, Johnson Yeboah observed that currently seven out of ten poultry farmers are folding up and the remaining three are not producing up to their full capacity due to the hikes in prices of poultry feeds.
The CEO of Jamboree Farmers revealed that the industry was massively affected in 2019 even before the outbreak of COVID-19 in the country.
“If I’m not afraid if you pick about ten farmers and now seven or eight are folding up because of these economic challenges. You know this our problem started in the last three years ago even with the insertion of COVID-19, farmers have been protesting, crying for support. Sometimes one may think or be inclined to think that based on the discussions we have about the industry, that is the challenges, maybe it isn’t a good venture for someone to invest but brother that is not true. Poultry farming used to be a very lucrative venture until recent times that three or two years back, it is just that as a country we have failed to plan, and failing to plan is planning to fail,” he said.
He continued that they have had a series of consultations with the government and even at one meeting he led a team to meet the President himself in Sunyani here and he directed them to put their concerns on paper and present. He said that they presented the paper as directed and since then they have written a lot of letters reminding the President but they have failed to even respond to any of the letters and nothing has been done to address the concerns they raised.
Mr. Yeboah added he used to produce 15,000 birds but now he is producing 5,000 due to the hikes in prices of poultry feeds.
“At the time I used to produce my full capacity, I have more than fifteen workers but now I have laid off some. The eleven you see them here it’s their situation that has forced me to keep them because if I lay them off, they have nowhere to go and I can’t watch them die on the streets.”
“The Rearing for Food and Jobs was a good policy but the government failed to involve us players in the industry which is why it has failed. Anytime we import, we create jobs for others but we keep complaining of unemployment in the country, our Cedi keeps depreciating due to more demand for dollars yet we make importing more lucrative than producing here in the country. The result is what we see today prices of goods are skyrocketing,” he said.
He appealed to the government to support the industry by a way of giving them loans with low interest and banning the importation of frozen chicken into the country and involving players in the industry policy-making and implementation to help revive the industry.
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