The Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) as part of the Broiler Revitalisation Project (BRP) by government, aims to provide Ghana’s poultry industry with four million-day-old chicks annually for five years.
The initiative according to MoFA, is a work in progress towards bringing an end to the importation of foreign poultry products into the country.
Director of Veterinary Services at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Dr Hayford Asiedu Baah, who made this known at an annual dinner event of the Greater Accra Poultry Farmers Association, also noted that the chicks would be produced in five cycle with each cycle producing four million chicks each year.
The chicks according to MoFA, would be distributed to selected poultry farmers nationwide, with a pilot of the first phase of the initiative scheduled to begin this year.
Accordingly, six districts in the Greater Accra Region have started taking part in the Broiler Revitalization Project.
In 2017, Ghana imported an estimated 135,000Mt (about 112 million birds) of frozen chicken from the European Union (EU), a 76 per cent increase over the 2016 EU import.
Ghana’s annual potential production capacity is estimated at 4.4 million birds.
However, a reported high cost of poultry feed and low importation cost for foreign poultry, have over the years had adverse effects on domestic production.
But Dr. Baah believes the Broiler Revitalization Project would be a game-changer and would lead to the creation of jobs nationwide.
President of GAPFA, Michael Nyarko Ampem, has lauded government for the announcement of the initiative and appealed to various implementing authorities to make the project a viable one.
He said poultry farmers across the country would take advantage of the project to expand their operations.
According to him, GAPFA was producing about 600,000 bags of 45kgs of broiler feed annually.
With the project, feed production is expected to increase.