Yaw Oppong has been a poultry farmer for the past 30 years.
When he started, a broiler could be reared at the cost of about GH¢1.50 cedis and sold at GH¢3.00 cedis.
“I could make satisfactory returns, sometimes giving a margin of about 100 per cent” he said.
However,when the importation of the frozen poultry started, Oppong recalls witnessing some reduction in the sale of his broilers.
When the situation was not getting any better, he stopped the production of the broilers and focused on layers which are for egg production.
Oppong’s hope was that the local broiler production would pick up some time later, but it has been several years now and there seems to be no hope for the revival of broiler production.
“Now a kilo of imported chicken is about GH¢5.00 and I sell one reared broiler bird for GH¢25.00. This means people would prefer the imported chicken to the locally produced one” he explained.
“I have to watch in despair as imported frozen chicken flood our market and destroy our business” he stated.
Currently,Oppong has stopped the production of broilers for meat and is focused on the production of layers for eggs.
However, during festive seasons such as Christmas, he rears some broilers since most people prefer the local chicken during the season.
Considering the high cost of feed leading to the high cost of production of local poultry, Oppong says, “it is very expensive now to rear broilers in the country”.
The story of Oppong is not different from most of the poultry farmers in the country.
How poultry started
Early poultry production involved many households having backyard flocks of different chickens. These chickens supplied eggs and an occasional chicken for festivity.
In the early 1950’s, some few entrepreneurs began selling young chickens for meat as a sideline activity on their family farms and that was how commercial poultry started.
Having started at a modest level of less than 20,000 chickens, the poultry industry grew recording an annual growth rate above 40 per cent in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Government began setting up state farms notable among them was the Pomadze Farms.
Consequently, investments in poultry service infrastructure, including day-old chicken (DOC) production and feed milling expanded, attracting a lot of people into the industry.
By 1993, there were about 23 commercial feed mills with annual capacity of 2.40 million tonnes as well as 11 commercial hatcheries with yearly combined output of 25.0 million DOCs.
Until the 1990s, Ghanaian poultry farmers could meet above 90 per cent of the total national demand for poultry. The country was then self-sufficient and could meet about 90 per cent of the total national demand for poultry.
The issues started when the industry had it fair share of the competition from imported goods due to the trade liberalisation.
Competition from the imported chicken
There is no doubt that the importation of the frozen chicken has led to the gradual collapse of the poultry industry in the country.
While total annual chicken consumption in Ghana is estimated at above 200,000 metric tonnes(MT), local broiler production amount to only 10 per cent while the remaining are imported.
According to a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) report on Ghana Poultry, in the last five years, the United States poultry imports to the country had increased to reach between 24-31 per cent of the market demand.
In a speech read on his behalf at the inauguration ceremony of the Greater Accra Poultry Farmers Association’s integrated poultry feed mill, the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr Clement Humado, said over the last five years, chicken imports alone cumulatively accounted for 74.2 per cent of total meat imports.
The minister further stated that the country was deficient in meeting her meat requirements with the growing population.
According to the United States of America Poultry and Eggs Exports Council, Ghana’s importation of frozen chicken rose from from 2009 to 2011, 65,000MT to 157,000MT with imports values of $87 million and $197 million respectively.
The situation forced most farmers out of broiler business to focus on layer production. Now, local broiler production in the country is done mostly to satisfy demand during festivities (Christmas, Easter, Ramadan etc.) with very few farmers producing all year round.
The production of layer chickens for table eggs are a little higher with total layer meat supply of about 12,400 tonnes.
With an estimated number of about 3,000 poultry farmers, the industry is operated in all the ten regions but highly operated in the Ashanti, Brong-Ahafo, Greater Accra, Central and Western regions.
The dwindling industry has also resulted in the collapse of some of the other value chain connected to the poultry industry. For instance, currently, there are about seven hatcheries that produce day-old chicks for commercial production for broiler and layer birds and less than eight commercial feed mills in the country.
Other issues facing the local industry
One major challenge that faces the local poultry industry is the high cost of feed which has led to the high cost of production.
Currently, poultry feed ranges between GH¢39 to GH¢53 and it could cost a minimum of GH¢12.00 cedis to rear a broiler weighing 2.3kilos.
The Executive Secretary of the Ghana National Association of Poultry Farmers, Mr Quame A. Kokroh, in an interview said broilers cost between GH₡ 20-30 , a price too high for the average person to buy.
“The high cost of feed was also a result of unstable raw materials for feed production”, he stated.
He also explained that there were no government policies that supported the development of the industry and added “there is absolute absence of strategies for growing and sustaining the poultry industry”.
Packaging, he said, was also a major challenge because many people found it very difficult to go to the market and buy a live chicken to slaughter before use.
“The industry does not have adequate credit facilities for farmers”, Mr Kokroh said, because most financial institutions were not ready to support the industry.
Government should redeem the industry
The poultry industry has a great potential of reducing the unemployment situation in the country if given the needed attention.
Raw materials for production, rearing, hatcheries, processing, packaging and marketing industries would end up creating jobs for Ghanaians.
According to Mr Kokroh, the government should use a holistic approach to make the various value chain linkages effective, profitable and sustainable.
That, he said, could be done by policy and legislation to avail its huge anchor market of all institutions to positively impact on increased consumption of locally produced poultry products including the eggs and broiler meat.
He encouraged the government to also consider the call by the GNAPF to add eggs to the menu of the National School Feeding Programme.
“Government should gradually and consistently cut the quantities of imported frozen chicken and impose high tariffs to gradually cede the market to locally produced broiler meat” he said.
He also called for appropriate financial packages to suit the needs of the entire poultry chain operations.
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