Rising cost of poultry feed affecting industry; total collapse eminent

The Greater Accra Poultry Farmers Association (GAPFA) has appealed to the government through the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to address the rising cost of poultry feed and its scarcity on the the market.

The Association said if these worrying developments are not well checked it will lead to an eminent collapse of the poultry industry in the country.

Addressing the media in Accra, the president of the Greater Accra Poultry Farmers Association, Michael Nyarko-Ampem, said the government must put in place pragmatic measures to engage flour millers on the possibility of making the wheat bran and maize available to poultry farmers in order to curb the incessant price increases.

“The Association is also calling on government to urge Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) to partner stakeholders in the poultry value chain to import maize specifically for the poultry industry,” he emphasized while reminding the government to revisit the issue of broiler importation into the country.

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He said, the Association has instituted a comprehensive framework which include signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with feed millers in the medium term to supply at least 50% of the total maize requirements of feed millers through outgrowers and aggregators. He called on the Agric Ministry to facilitate the signing at a mutually agreed price for industry players in the poultry space.

He said the poultry farmers are going through challenges of scarcity of maize and wheat bran and soya bean, and that the cereals constitute about 80% of the total volume of ingredients needed to produce the feed for poultry.

Given the rising cost of maize in the past few years, he said in the year, 2020, a 50kg bag of maize was selling for GH¢65, however, in November 2020, the price for the same commodity shot up to GH¢100 and in June 2021, the same commodity at the same weight is selling for GH¢130. The same goes for wheat bran and soya bean cake.

“Some farms have completely shutdown as well as feed mills”, he revealed, adding that the only department which is sustaining the poultry industry is the production of eggs which have also experienced high price due to the unavailability of cereals.

He said the poultry industry consists of seed producers, crop farmers, warehouse owners, transporters, feed millers, hatcheries, hotels and restaurants and about 21 feed mills in the country, saying if value chain fails to work the consequences will be negative on the economy.

Nyarko Ampem said most of the poultry farmers have invested massively in their business hence government must quickly intervene to save the Association from total collapse.

“The Association is made up of 1,775 and have a staff strength of 75 as the factory have shut down a few times during these challenging periods but a total shut down is looming and an immediate action needs to be taken to ensure that this disaster is averted,” he said.

By Ben LARYEA