Author: James Appiakorang Jnr.
Vice President of the Confederation for the Development of Poultry in Africa (CADA), John Bewuah Edusei has bemoaned the huge volumes of poultry meat importation into Ghana.
He described as pathetic that Ghana, 66 years after independence still imports 99 percent of its poultry meat needs.
According to him, other needs of poultry farmers in the country that could help them in their businesses have also seen a rampant increase in prices, forcing many of them to close down their businesses or lay of several workers.
“A lot of our farms have collapsed, the few that still exist are producing at a very high cost and making virtually no profits.
After 66 years after achieving a Republic status for our beloved country, our Nation Ghana still imports about 99 % of Poultry meat.
This is woefully unacceptable, considering the fact that our people eat more than One million Chicken per day and the huge job loses from the Poultry industry alone”. He noted.
Lack of storage facilities
Mr. Bewuah Edusei who has been one of the forerunners of the poultry industry in Ghana for several years, and has always offered cogent suggestions as to how the industry could be made more profitable, attractive and beneficial to Ghanaians also lamented about the losses made from the Planting for Food and Jobs Program introduced by the Nana Addo government.
“Thanks to the planting for food and jobs agenda, Maize Production went high, but unfortunately we have failed to protect our farm produce, from this Programme. We failed to Store, but rather allowed our sister countries smuggle them away, hence creating shortage and then high pricing”. He pointed.
Political Will
The CADA Vice President noted that Government of Ghana needs a strong political will if it needs to revive the poultry industry in the country.
He suggested that there should be a reduction of the frozen Chicken imports by 50%.
“Yes this will create some amount of shortage, but that is the way to create awareness for Chicken Production in our Country”, he insisted adding that filling in the vacuum will not be difficult to do as Commercial Broilers can be produced between 4 to 5 Weeks today due to technology.
Employment
Mr. Bewuah Edusei who was speaking at the 2023 National Poultry Day also noted that the importation of around 500,000 Metric Tons of poultry meat into Ghana shows the level of job loses in Poultry alone.
He maintained that poultry can easily create more than one Million Jobs in Ghana if the government pays attention to the industry.
He however said the call for attention on the industry was not in any way to seek the collapse of businesses of chicken importers, but an encouragement to also focus on locally producing poultry products.
