Mr Boris Baidoo, the Chief Executive Officer of Boris B’s Farms and Veterinary Supplies Ghana Limited, has called on Ghanaians to generate the taste for poultry produced in Ghana to promote the President’s agricultural policy Rearing for Food and Jobs.
According to him, the poultry sector is a big one, and the attention from the government will create market connections for soybeans, millet, maize and other cereals, since these crops are used in the preparation of poultry feed and also take lots of people off the street especially tertiary graduates.
He said Ghana’s frozen chicken imports jumped from 13,000 metric tons in 2000 to over 155,000 metric tons in 2011 costing $169 million and figures showed that in 2017, a total of over 135,000Mt (about 112 million birds) of frozen chicken was imported from European Union (EU), which is 76 per cent increase over the 2016 EU import.
Mr. Baidoo argued that the excessive importation of frozen chicken as well as high costs of production have been the bane of local poultry production therefore the swift intervention by the president is on the right direction.
Adding that, this scares the poultry industry as many Ghanaians have generated taste for frozen chicking therefore crippling the section but said with the government support through the rearing for good and job policy will help minimize the cost of production hence Ghanaians interest to consume poultry produce from Ghana is key to its sustainability.
Mr Boris Baidoo noted that chicken continued to remain one of the most important sources of Ghanaian protein and a sector that can employ a lot to reduce the rate of unemployment in the country. “While government will roll out specific interventions to support the smallholder local poultry sector, the Planting for Food and Jobs campaign takes into account reducing the cost of feed inputs which form more than 60% of poultry production costs.”
The President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, added a fresh initiative to one of his litany of programs – Rearing for Food and Jobs (RFJ), which took place in Wa in the Upper West Region. The five-year module will commence this year and end in 2023.
During the introduction of the program, the President said, “I will develop a competitive and more efficient livestock industry that will increase domestic production, reduce importation of livestock products, contribute to employment creation, and improve livelihoods of livestock value chain actors.”
While launching the programme, the President bemoaned the steep decline of Ghana’s livestock sector, a phenomenon attributable to the high cost of production and competition from cheap imports of similar products.
He said the situation had led to livestock producers changing to crop production. The President presented a grim economic statistics of the country importing $400 million worth of meat products annually against the backdrop of local meat production accounting for only 19% of local meat requirements. He said the reality was an indictment on the country and it required the success of the newly inaugurated program to reverse it.
Dubbed: “Rearing for Food and Jobs (RFJ)”, the President said the programme would focus its attention on breed improvement, productivity and production, development of infrastructure, feed production, among others, including the application of e-agriculture in livestock production.
“By design, the campaign will cover selected value chains in the livestock sector namely cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, poultry chicken and guinea fowl,” he added.
With only six breeding farms currently in operation, as opposed to 28 in 1993, the President told the gathering that “the breeding stations that were closed down at Wawase in the Eastern Region, Wulugu in the North East Region, Doba in the Upper East Region, Busa in the Upper West Region, and Wenchi in the Bono Region, are being revived.”
The RFJ is similar to the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) initiative by the government which is the brainchild of the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto
By: Austin Ofori Addo/ritefmonline.org/austinofor.addo@gmail.com
