Poultry farmers recorded a loss at Christmas sales

Ghanaian poultry farmers claim they recorded a loss over the Christmas season, pointing to many of their colleagues going bankrupt soon. This was revealed at the Poultry Farmers Association’s annual conference held after the Christmas festivities in Kumasi in the Ashanti region on Monday. Before 2017 Christmas, many of the poultry farmers had high expectation to record relatively high sales as they unanimously agreed to beat down prices to entice Ghanaians to patronize their produce. Several occasions on Connect FM, Napoleon Agyeman Oduro, vice president of the National Poultry Farmers Association drummed home how the industry was faced with high competition with imported poultry produce in the country. In an interview with Connect Business on Monday, January 8, 2018,  the vice chairman attributed the low sales to imported poultry, and blamed the government for a low tax component that makes importation of poultry attractive to importers. As a result, he indicated that the association could not win the price war against the importers. Despite the reduction “many fowls were left unsold and are still sitting in cages”, he lamented. Mr. Agyeman Oduro said poultry farmers have been sacrificing over the years to ensure stability of the dwindling industry but it is now becoming difficult as some farmers abandon the industry to venture into other lucrative businesses. He maintained that sustainability of the poultry industry could offer alternative job opportunities, especially to the youth, if needed attention was given to industry players. The association’s vice chairman is confident a “tripartite approach” by stakeholders would turn things around for members. Government should first create the enabling environment, he explained, for the farmers to have easy access to soft loans; government should also focus on policies such as planting for food and jobs to ensure that maize becomes relatively affordable for poultry farmers to use as feeds. The second approach, he said, consumers should insist on quality poultry produce instead of compromising on fatty imported produce. The last approach, he urged local poultry farmers to adopt new technologies to enhance production that may demand less capital investment and also inculcate capacity building as a way of learning new things about the industry. By Loveridge Ampratwum Okyere | Connect 97.1 FM |3news.com]]>