Following the large importation of poultry into the country, the government has announced a new measure to address the heavy reliance on foreign poultry meat in the country.
The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, noted in his 2024 Budget presentation to parliament that Planting for Food and Jobs [PFJ] phase 2 has a special focus on poultry to address the heavy reliance on the importation of chicken products.
According to him, the government, through the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, is ready to support fifteen (15) anchor farmers and 500 out-growers in five regions (Ashanti, Greater Accra, Bono, Bono East, and Eastern regions) to produce 65,000 MT of broilers in 2024.
Mr. Ofori-Atta indicated in his address that this has become necessary in seeking to change course in the agriculture sector.
The President in August 2023 launched the Planting for Food and Jobs (PfJ) 2.0. By design, the PFJ 2.0 places greater emphasis on value chain approaches and focuses on strengthening linkages between actors along eligible agricultural commodity value chains, broadly categorised into grains, roots and tubers, vegetables, and poultry.
The Greater Accra Poultry Farmers Association (GAPFA) says that poultry farmers across the country would take advantage of the project to expand their operations. At the same time, the president of GAPFA, Michael Ampem, believes that the market should remain open to poultry imports to motivate the industry to develop and modernize. “Poultry importers should be made to buy at least 50% of poultry products produced in Ghana and import the rest of the 50%”, he said.
It is surprising to note that Ghana imports Poultry Meat primarily from Netherlands ($94.9M), United States ($92.5M), Poland ($85.2M), Brazil ($44.8M), and United Kingdom ($19.6M). The fastest-growing import markets in Poultry Meat for Ghana between 2020 and 2021 were United States ($37.8M), Poland ($30.8M), and Brazil ($27.8M).