Poultry project first batch ready for market • FSRP, Ministry collaboration will deliver 2 million birds annually
The first batch of broilers under the West Africa Food System Resilience Programme (FSRP) of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) is ready for the table.
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The broilers are being processed into whole chicken and cut parts for packaging and marketing, having reached the maturity age of seven weeks, with an average live weight of between 2.9 and 3.0 kilos.
The market demand for dressed chicken for fast-food restaurants such as KFC and Papaye range between the weights of 1.1 and 1.3 kilos, which is generally obtained between four and five weeks old, with an average live weight between 1.7 and 2.0 kilos.
This means consumers can, therefore, obtain the homegrown, hygienically processed, fresh and nutritious broiler chicken in malls, restaurants and processing facilities in parts of the country.
With the object of revamping the broiler industry, MoFA rolled out the first phase of the Poultry Intensification Scheme under the West Africa Food System Resilience Programme (FSRP) in February this year.
Selected commercial anchor poultry farmers in the Ashanti Region took delivery of about 130,000 day-old chicks last month under the first consignment of day-old chicks for the scheme.
Other regions in line for day-old chicks deliveries 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.
The broiler poultry initiative being run by the ‘FSRP Poultry Intensification Scheme’ which took effect in June this year under the auspices of MoFA.
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The Project Coordinator, Osei Owusu Agyeman, said the project was very important to build the competitiveness of local farmers to meet local demand to cut imports.
“This is an effort to revitalise the poultry sector by building the capacity of local producers to make them competitive enough to meet local demand, fend off imports and export to West Africa,” he stated.
Mr Owusu Agyeman explained that the project would also enable MoFA and other partners to confirm data about the poultry production value chain in the country so as to make a compelling case to the youth and other investors.
Asked how the initiative could help to break the artificial barriers to export, the Project Coordinator said the most important aspect was the building of resilience and competitiveness, which would make the prices of the product cheaper in the country and thereby attract buyers from neighbouring countries, such as Nigeria, which had imposed many trade barriers on imports.
To that end, the Project Coordinator said the FSRP-MoFA project was aimed at tackling all bottlenecks along the value chain, making every segment competitive to attract anchor investors as well as workers from all walks of life to make extra streams of income from the venture as outgrowers.
Mr Owusu Agyeman said the project was centred around sustainability, ownership by the various actors and public-private engagement to facilitate the process.
Quality control exercise
Last week, an FSRP monitoring team made up of officials of the Animal Production Directorate (APD), the Veterinary Services Dept (VSD), both of MoFA and FSRP visited the poultry farms and processing facilities in the Ashanti Region to ascertain their adherence to laid down industrial standards such as feed quality, vaccinations, bio-security requirements, the required weights and general health of the birds.
The facilities visited were the Rockland Farms, producers of Akoko Tasty Chicken; Asamoah and Yamoah Farms, producers of Gold Birds; Darko Farms, producers of Darko Farms; Chicken and Boris B Farms which produces Boris B Chicken.
At Rockland Farms, FSRP and MoFA officials witnessed semi-automated processing methods, while at Darko Farms and Asamoah & Yamoah Farms the officials were taken through fully automated processing methods, including slaughtering, dressing, cutting into parts, packaging, blast freezing and transportation.
Mr Owusu Agyeman said the FSRP - MoFA Poultry Intensification Scheme had also been rolled out in the Eastern Region with Fredna Farms in the Central Region, with Judahson Farms, and in the Greater Accra Region where Pap Farms served as the anchor farmer.
Those in the Bono and other regions were expected to be rolled onto the scheme next month.
Poultry intensification scheme
The MOFA-FSRP Poultry Intensification Scheme is being run in phases under World Bank funding, with each beneficiary receiving input credit of about 160,000 day-old chicks, 4.5kg of feed per bird, as well as supplies of vaccines.
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They are also trained 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.
Under the $12.5-million World Bank financed scheme, 22 commercial anchor farmers and their outgrowers nationwide are being supported to produce, process and market two million birds annually over the next three years.
The World Bank funded FSRP is being promoted by ECOWAS for participating countries. Aside from Ghana, the other countries include Burkina Faso, Togo, Mali, Niger, Chad, Sierra Leone and Senegal.
In Ghana, FSRP which is being implemented by the MoFA, is focusing on the intensified production, marketing and consumption of wholesome rice, maize, broiler poultry, soyabeans and tomatoes.
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