Ghana’s Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture in charge of livestock, Mohammed Hardi Tuferu has said government has put in place adequate resources and measures to boost the production of poultry feed in the country.
According to him, the incident had created a huge challenge on industry players in the poultry value chain.
He therefore said the government had rolled out swift programmes and initiatives to ensure that there is enough feed for the birds to scale up operations.
Mr Tuferu made the call at a stakeholders forum on the nationwide poultry chicken and guinea fowl production processing and packaging projects in Accra.
The forum created a platform for players in the agricultural sector to discuss and deliberate on issues and challenges as well as moves to enhance the economic potentials in the poultry space.
It will be recalled that the poultry industry experienced massive shortage of poultry feed which led to undue pressure to poultry farmers in the operationalization of their farms compelling government to engage and find remedies and innovative ways to help address the shortage of the poultry feed.
He added that the poultry industry have contributed immensely to the economic growth of the country as well as job creation for the teeming youth and said “it is in these regard that government has introduced its flagship program dubbed “Rearing for and Jobs programme as part of the drive to boost the agricultural industry.
The Deputy Minister of Finance, Dr. John Kumah in a speech said the forum ties into the concepts of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement hence poultry farmers must add value to production to enable penetrate into the global market and explained that the move will also enable them to engage investors to have competitive edge at the international markets.
That he added, government in the year 2021 budgeted US$ 2billion for food importation and includes poultry products and pointed out that it is for these reasons that stakeholders in partnership with government will find alternative ways to curb the mass importation of poultry products into the country.
“As a country still fighting the COVID-19 virus, government will revamp the economic since it has affected the economic growth of industries”, he said and indicated that priority will be given to poultry farmers across the country to create immediate jobs for the youth during post Covid-19 pandemic.
In a presentation, Mr. Raymond Denteh, Ton Van de Ven, Marco de Bruijn, Han Bartels and Bram Wits took turns to highlight the operations of the poultry industry and its value chain as well as the emerging trends in the industry across the world.
By Ben Laryea, African Eye Report
