Poultry, livestock show underway in Kumasi

A two-day Poultry, Agriculture and Livestock Show (PALS) has opened in Kumasi with a call on the youth to take advantage of the various agricultural initiatives by the government to venture into the sector.

The Chief Executive of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), Mr Osei Assibey Antwi, who made the call, said there were prospects for people desirous of going into agriculture and therefore urged the youth to take up farming to improve their lots.

According to him, gone are the days where farming was regarded as menial job.

Event

This year’s PALS expo which opened in Kumasi yesterday is on the theme, “Upscaling the Poultry, Aquaculture and Livestock industry through modernization.”
The show includes exhibition, food bazaar and seminars.

Prospects

Mr Assibey Antwi said the future of agriculture was brighter now than before due to the advancement in technology that had reduced the drudges that the earlier generations went through.

According to him, there were lots of opportunities in the agriculture value chain that could solve unemployment in the country.

He said initiatives such as the ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’, ‘One district, one Factory’ and ‘One district, one warehouse’ were all aimed at improving the agriculture sector and creating jobs for the teeming unemployed youth.

Commendation

The KMA boss commended the organisers of the show for bringing together stakeholders in the industry under one roof to discuss issues affecting the sector.

He was hopeful that more young people would be inspired to take up farming as a vocation.

Appeal

The CEO of 'Chicks and Chicken, organisers of the exhibition, Mr John Bewuah Edusei, appealed to the government to help the poultry sector produce enough to reduce the import bill on poultry.

He noted that, although there were lots of poultry farmers in the country who could produce to meet demands, the country still imported close to 250,000 tonnes of poultry every year.

According to him, the poultry sector alone could create enough jobs to absorb the increasing number of unemployed youth in the country.

Nigeria situation

A representative from the Nigerian Poultry Farmers Association, Mr Adetoyie Olabode, said the poultry sector alone in Nigeria, employed close to five million people, adding that Nigeria produced half a billion tonnes of chicken yearly.

He said the industry had been able to achieve that feat through the support of the Nigerian government and assistance from the banks.

Mr Olabode called for more collaborations and intra-trade between the two countries to improve the poultry industry in the sub-region.