…as first batch of day-old chicks arrive
With an object of revamping the broiler industry, the Ministry of Food & Agriculture (MoFA) has rolled out the first phase of the Poultry Intensification Scheme under the West Africa Food System Resilience Programme (FSRP).
To that effect, some selected commercial anchor poultry farmers in the Ashanti Region have taken delivery of about 130,000-day-old chicks – which constitutes their first consignment of day-old chicks for the commencement of the scheme.
Other regions in line for day-old chicks delivery under the scheme are the Bono, Eastern, Greater Accra, Central and Volta Regions, to contribute to the MOFA-FSRP mission to revamp the poultry industry in Ghana.
FSRP Project Coordinator, Osei Owusu Agyeman, told the B&FT that the scheme will positively disrupt the poultry value chain as well as other aspects of the project.
He said the long-term goal of the project is to make the domestic poultry sector competitive and enhance value addition thereby curbing imports.
“This is why the FSRP is anchored on three themes; sustainability, ownership and public private engagement. These themes go a long way to benefit the sector to deepen domestic production and long-term goals” he said.
FSRP’s Animal Production Directorate Focal Person, Dr Abdul Razak Okine, said the intervention is key, considering the current deficit in the sector.
“At the moment, the sector is only able to meet five percent of consumption needs with, bringing a heavy reliance on imported poultry products” he noted.
This he said, presents the need for the local industry to upscale to a point of self-sufficiency in broiler production, adding, ‘’MoFA has the capacity to provide technical expertise for the success of the project”.
BENEFITS
The MOFA-FSRP scheme is run in phases under World Bank funding, with each beneficiary receiving input credit in the form of about one hundred and sixty thousand (160, 000) day-old chicks, one hundred and eighty (180,000) kilograms of feed, as well as supplies of vaccines, in the first round of allocations.
Beneficiary farmers, according to Mr Agyeman, will also be granted training in best modern practices and climate-smart technologies within the poultry industry.
“They will further be able to access matching grants to procure equipment to support post-production processing and cold storage. The scheme targets the production of approximately two million broiler birds on a yearly basis, under a US$12.5m World Bank facility” he disclosed.
Eligibility criteria
The programme has selected twenty-two commercial anchor farmers nationwide to be supported to produce, process and market two million birds annually over the next three years. The criteria for participation in the scheme demand that applicants must have been in poultry (broiler) production, processing and marketing within the last five years; must be registered with the Registrar General or other statutory body; must have linkages with small holder farmers; must be in the databases of the District Directorate of Agriculture of their operational areas.
Prospective participants must also include at least 10 percent women and 10 percent youth in both upstream and downstream of the value chain; and must be compliant with requirements of regulatory bodies like the Environmental Protection Agency, Ghana Fire Service, the Food & Drugs Authority, Ghana Standards Authority and the World Bank.
The scheme will feed into the PFJ 2.0 targeted poultry self-sufficiency output of 400,000 metric tonnes per year by 2028.
ABOUT FSRP
The West Africa Food System Resilience Programme (FSRP) is a World Bank funded program, promoted by ECOWAS for participating countries. It is to strengthen food system risk management, improve the sustainability of the agricultural productive base and harmonize agricultural markets in the West African sub region. Participating countries include Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Chad, Sierra Leone, Togo and Chad. In Ghana, FSRP which is being implemented by the Ministry of Food & Agriculture, is focusing on the intensified production, marketing and consumption of wholesome Rice, Maize, Broiler Poultry, Soyabeans (for the poultry) and Tomatoes.
