By: Akosua Frema Frempong
Stakeholders in the poultry value chain in the Ashanti Region and Sunyani and Dormaa Ahenkro areas of the Bono Region have met in Kumasi to deliberate on developing a strategic master plan to transform and strengthen the country’s poultry sector.
The proposed plan is expected to serve as a holistic road map to guide the sustainable growth of the sector by integrating various poultry interventions, policies, and development strategies into a single coordinated framework to guide successive governments and industry players.
The workshop was organized by Agri-Impact Limited in collaboration with the Mastercard Foundation, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, and other partners. It formed part of the Harnessing Agricultural Productivity and Prosperity for Youth, ‘HAPPY’ programme, which seeks to create employment opportunities for the youth, especially young women and persons with disabilities, boost food production, and reduce the country’s reliance on imported poultry products.
Participants at the workshop included poultry farmers, feed producers, processors, marketers, researchers, and development partners who deliberated on challenges confronting the poultry sector and explored strategies to enhance productivity and competitiveness. Speaking at the event, an Agribusiness and Value Chain Specialist at Agri-Impact Limited, Abraham Sarfo, called for increased investment in the poultry sector and the adoption of technology-driven innovations to attract more participants into the industry.
“We still need more investment in this sector. Data shows that we have probably not touched even 30 percent of the investment potential of the country. A lot of investors are coming in. But also, things that drive the industry, technology, innovation, are very important. So as we deliberate, we need a Master Plan. How do we apply innovation and technology to manage our farms? Remote sensing, disease identification—these are all technology-driven, so that you can even sit here and be able to monitor your farms and know what is happening. We want to cut the era of telephone farming away. We have a lot of people who have invested in the industry and have redrawn their investment because the value that they relied on turned out to be bad. We want to encourage a lot of people to go into the industry, especially young women, but most of them also have other job ideas. So how do we apply technology to help us monitor and be able to make a profit as we invest in the industry,” Mr. Sarfo noted.
The Business Development and Research Manager at Agri-Impact Limited, Prince Manu Yeboah, said the ‘HAPPY’ Programme has recorded remarkable achievements since its inception in 2023. He said employment opportunities had been created for over eight thousand people, while more than 10 thousand people have been trained to improve production efficiency and market access.
“Up to date, we have been able to produce about 4.6 million birds, and all of these birds have been able to find markets. Hitherto, there have been a lot of interventions and programs where the birds are produced and eventually very little goes to the market. But we have also made sure that we have been able to push for all these birds to go to the market, which is equivalent to about seven-point-five thousand metric tons of what we produce. And this has generated about $25 million in the country. And so far, that is where we are on the program. And we believe that with collective support, and a more guided approach—which is why we have met here to look at the poultry master plan—we will be able to know which areas require more attention and how we would structure going forward to create the needed service.
It is important for us to know that, at this point, what we need is more calibrated and targeted investment.
The breeder and the hatchery, which are very critical components of the poultry value chain, again, in terms of institutional strengthening and capacity, are something that is very important. And beyond that, the need for us to have inclusion and the voice of young people in whatever we are doing, driven by data and technology,” Mr. Yeboah explained.
The workshop is part of a series of engagements spearheaded by the Animal Production Directorate of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to develop a comprehensive, data-driven, and sustainable master plan to transform the poultry sector, reduce dependence on imports, and strengthen the local industry roadmap for the poultry industry.
