Meat production under threat
The future of meat production in the country is under threat due to the rejection of animal breeders from various communities in the country.
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The Vice-Chairman of the Cattle Dealers and Breeders in Kumasi, Mr Mohamed Muntakar Iddrissu, who disclosed this, explained that the current situation whereby chiefs, opinion leaders and communities were rejecting, sacking and refusing to give land out to the breeders was very dangerous.
According to Mr Iddrisu, “currently, a little over half of the animals sold in the country were brought from nearby countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali and Cote d’Ivoire which shows that there is the need for the nation to boost its own production of meat since any break in supply from those foreign sources can be very disastrous to the nation.”
He said the expansion in the local production of animals in the country did not only enhance meat production but also create jobs at various levels in the country in the area of animal farming, animals sales and the sale of meat, as well as improving the quality of meat supplies in the country.
The Vice-Chairman said the land tenure system in the country posed a threat to the rearing of animals as most stakeholders were not ready to release parcels of land for the establishment of kraals in their communities.
He, therefore, appealed to the various stakeholders and opinion leaders in the country to take a critical look at the situation to avoid a disaster in the production of meat in the country.
Another dangerous situation was the fact that most commercial farmers were just raising the animals in large numbers just for fame and were not ready to sell them.
He explained that if care was not taken, in the next 10 years, it would be very difficult to get meat raised from the local market, citing the high foreign exchange rate which also made it very difficult to buy the imported animals as the dealers had to deal with the various police barriers where they had to pay huge sums of money to prevent their trucks from unnecessary delays.
Mr Iddrissu said apart from the unnecessary delays at the barriers, when the animals are delayed, it usually led to the death of some due to suffocation and heat in the trucks and to avoid those conditions, the dealers were forced to pay huge sums of money demanded at the barriers.
That, in the long run, leads to an increase in the prices of meat products on the market, a situation which, to them, is not good for the nation.