John Bewuah Edusei, the newly-appointed Vice President of Confederation for the Development of Poultry in Africa (CADA), has called for commitment to revive the local poultry industry and agricultural industry as a whole.
Mr. Edusei cautioned that the country’s failure to transform the agriculture sector could result in hunger and famine, especially due to a ‘population explosion’.
The 2022 United Nations Population Division forecasts that the future population of the world’s countries, based on current demographic trends, will reach 9.7 billion people by 2050 and 10.9 billion by 2100.
However, a greater proportion of the population growth is expected to come from the Africa.
It is against this background that a great famine beckons the country if the leadership does not take pragmatic steps in domesticating agricultural products, Edusei stated.
According to the Vice President of CADA, “Nobody knows when the next disaster will strike the world; therefore, we need to plan and ensure food security before it is too late”.
“Poultry will have to play a major role going forward. But where are the poultry farms today? It becomes obligatory for us to have a systematic and sustainable development poultry growth plan…All our major layer farms are down and our broiler production is below 2 percent of our national requirements,” he lamented.
Mr. Edusei notes that some farms have declined from a capacity of 800,000 birds to less than 20,000, noting the situation as worrying – “but the worst part of it is the exceptionally high job losses”.
Ghana’s chicken imports have almost doubled from US$375million in 2018, he said, noting that government has failed in curbing the high importation figures – leading to rampant job losses locally.
Though the ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’ (PFJ) programme has increased maize production, this success, he notes, will be useless unless it is linked up with a robust plan for pricing, storage and marketing.
“The earlier we as a nation start with strategic programmes to systematically increase maize and poultry production, the stronger we will be to face the consequences of population hikes in 2050 and beyond,” he stated.
The purpose of CADA is to promote the poultry industry in Africa through training and defending the interests of African poultry players through strategic programmes.
