Ensure maintenance of chickens for your financial growth - Yilo Krobo MCE to recipients of Nkoko nkitinkiti programme

The Yilo Krobo Municipal Assembly has distributed over 10,000 local chickens to a number of beneficiaries in the municipality, with a call on the recipients to ensure they take good care of the birds for their financial growth. 

The distribution exercise held at Somanya, the Yilo Krobo Municipal capital, brought together many of the beneficiaries from the various communities, especially the upper part of the municipality, including women’s groups, youth associations and smallholder farmers.

The distribution forms part of the Nkoko nkitinkiti initiative of the Poultry Industry Revitalisation Programme under the Feed Ghana Programme, a national policy championed by President John Dramani Mahama to drive food security and economic growth.

Fifteen poultry farmers received 150 chickens each, while individual household farmers were given 50 chickens per person.

The programme is expected to improve access to protein-rich food, increase local poultry supply and reduce reliance on imported chicken.

Speaking to the Daily Graphic after the programme, the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Francis Akumatey Addo, said the municipality received 10,000 birds aimed at promoting local poultry production using resilient indigenous breeds.

He explained that the brooding houses recorded minimal mortality rates after the mandatory brooding period.

‘’This intervention is not just about giving out birds, it is about creating opportunities for sustainable livelihoods.

With proper management, the birds will multiply and provide steady income and nutrition.

Own the birds

“I will therefore encourage all the beneficiaries to ensure you maintain the birds to enhance finances as well as your entire livelihood now and into the future.

Out of these birds, those who are serious will even get properties from them. Don’t joke with it; rather, take ownership and benefit from it”, Mr Addo advised. 

The Yilo Krobo MCE disclosed that although the birds required a four-week brooding period, the municipality extended it to six weeks to ensure maturity and improve survival rates.

“Brooding was carried out at selected farms, including Jireh Farm at Okwenya, Nazareth Farm at Akorley and Joe Farms,”  he stated.

He added that officials from the Department of Agriculture also trained beneficiaries on proper poultry management practices including housing, feeding, vaccination and hygiene and stressed the need for the farmers to reinvest in their stocks rather than selling their birds prematurely.

According to Mr Addo, over 100 people applied to benefit from the programme, saying “the Yilo Krobo Municipal Assembly reaffirms its commitment to sustaining similar interventions to enhance agricultural productivity across the municipality”.    

One of the beneficiaries, Gladys Teiko, expressed her gratitude to the Yilo Krobo Municipal Assembly and, by extension, the government for the initiative, which, when taken seriously, would enhance their livelihoods.

She urged her colleague beneficiaries not to treat the programme as just an activity for the day, but to think about the future. 

“I know someone who started with 10 birds in one of the villages and today she has added other things to it and she is making it.

I have taken a cue from that and that is why I will be very serious with what I have received”, she advised.