The Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) has set aside GH¢ 500 million to support the poultry industry in Ghana.
In partnership with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), the Bank of Ghana (BoG), the Ghana Incentive-based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (GIRSAL) and the Out-grower and Value Chain Fund (OVCF); the programme is meant to end the country’s dependence on imported poultry products and create jobs for the youth.
Under the initiative, the ADB will give soft loans to the tune of GH¢ 500million to businesses in the poultry value chain to help de-risk their operations, increase chicken production and cut out the imports.
The first tranche of the facility, amounting to GH¢23 million, has been approved by ADB’s Board and is now ready to be disbursed to six businesses in the Bono Region.
The Managing Director of ADB, Dr. John Kofi Mensah, explained that the initiative was the bank’s support to the government’s Broiler Revitalisation Programme, aimed at increasing domestic production of chicken.Dr. Mensah said the amount was to be invested between 2020 and 2022 in line with the bank’s strategic plan.
Dr. Mensah described the programme as “a big revival of the poultry industry” that would help spur growth in related sectors, including maize and millet production, provide low cost but quality chicken to hotels and other hospitality sector operators and create thousands of jobs.
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“Empowered to create additional 50 jobs in the initial stages, with the possibility of scaling it up in the coming months.
In terms of impact on the broiler production per company, he said the poultry producers should be able to double their capacities after receiving the support.
“If you were producing about 10,000 birds per month, you should be able to produce 100,000 birds per week after benefiting from this support,” he said.He said from the Bono Region, the programme would move to the Ashanti Region, the Greater Accra Region, and the Eastern and Central regions. Dr Mensah said, unlike traditional loans that attracted interest rates above 20 per cent per annum, funds from the bank’s Broiler Revitalisation Programme would attract interest rates below 10 per cent per annum.
