Agri Business

Chickens for Christmas: Local Poultry Industry Ready for Supply

A poultry farmer in Somanya in the Eastern Region, Mr. Steven Tetteh has assured the public that they (poultry farmers) are ready to feed the country before, during and after the Christmas festivities.

Mr. Tetteh boasts of some seven thousand five hundred (7500) broilers and layers in addition to hundreds of turkey which according to him are ready for sale.

“Currently, I have about seven thousand, five hundred (7500) broilers and layers and just last month, I sold one thousand (1000) broilers and layers to a customer,” he told Captain Adabuga on the Rite Morning Show.

Traditionally, poultry farmers enjoy high sales during Christmas, Easter and other festivities. But even though poultry farmers make a lot of sales during these periods, prices of other commodities such as rice, beans, maize, cooking oil, milk, among others equally escalate which sometimes affect the patronage.

Mr. Tetteh however identified the main challenge tackling poultry farmers as the importation of frozen chicken into the country which most consumers patronize more than the local chicken.

He said local farmers were disadvantaged by feeding types of poultry involving the local and foreign poultry.

“Whereas local poultry farmers feed the birds on maize, soya beans and millet, their foreign counterparts on the other hand feed them on other nutritional value feed which enhances their ‘quick growth’ and physically standard compared to the local productions,” he asserted.

The poultry farmer is therefore calling on the government to ban the importation of the frozen chicken into the country and put mechanisms in place to import quality feed that their foreign counterparts use in feeding their poultry so that they can feed their poultry on that type of feed to meet the demands of the local market.

During festive occasions such as Christmas (especially), Easter, Muslim and Traditional festivals, demand for broilers, spent hens and poultry products are high and far exceed supply as consumers develop special preference for local poultry and poultry products particularly live broilers and eggs.

However, as soon as the festive periods were over, demand for such products particularly broilers, decline and as a result of that most farmers tend to concentrate on table egg production than broiler production.

Most farmers argue that it is more economically sustainable to produce table eggs to maintain a regular income than raising broilers whose patrons seldom pay cash thus indirectly compelling the poultry farmers to pre-finance the patron’s businesses, hence the shift to table egg production.

It is also observed that local broiler production in Ghana, which is under 10 per cent of the total local demand for chicken meat, is done mostly to satisfy demand during such festivities.

Source: Prince Paul Amuzu/ritefmonline.org/princeamuzu667@gmail.com

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