<<Print>>

The Greater Accra Poultry Farmers Association has inaugurated a five-tonne integrated poultry feed mill. The GH�452,183 mill is capable of producing 120 bags of poultry feed daily. Currently, there are less than eight commercial feed mills in the country due to the fact that most of them have folded up. The poultry industry in Ghana has, over the years, dwindled because of challenges, including competition from imported frozen chicken and the high cost of production. In a speech read on his behalf at the inauguration last Saturday, the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr Clement Humado, said inadequate capacity for feed production in the country contributed to the slowdown in poultry production. He announced that the government was currently studying a proposal for funding support submitted by the Ghana National Association of Farmers to revitalise the industry. Under the proposal, he said, about 475,000 broilers would be produced locally during the first year, saying the figure was expected to reach about 70 million broilers in the fifth year. That, he said, would require about 250,000 to 350,000 metric tonnes of feed for the industry. Mr Humado added that last year meat available for consumption from both local and imported sources stood about 225,000 metric tonnes. According to the minister, the figure was not sufficient to satisfy the yearly national meat requirement of about 300,000 metric tonnes. �Over the last five years, chicken imports alone cumulatively accounted for 74.2 per cent of Ghana�s total meat import of 521,291 metric tonnes � he said. The President of the association, Mr Abu Yaw Baidoo, said the equipment would make production faster, easier and more efficient. He added that the association was putting up a warehouse at Gomoa Akotsi in the Central Region for the storage of its materials. Giving the 2012 report on the performance of the association, he stated that 426,142 bags of feed were sold in 2012, compared with 355,091 in 2011. The association�s gross income, he noted, increased from GH�11,901,240 in 2011 to GH�16, 164,634 in 2012 representing an increase of 36 per cent.