A team of investors from Sedima Group, a Senegalese business stationed in Dakar over the weekend stormed the Ministry Of Food And Agriculture in Accra to pitch ideas on ways they can assist the nation to be self-sufficient in poultry production in the Country.
The team was led by the President of the company, Mr. Babacar Ngom pays a courtesy call on the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto with the agenda to partner with local and foreign investors in Ghana to see this project through.
In their quest to achieve food self-sufficiency, they make chicken and eggs accessible to their target market through quality poultry inputs including chicks, feed, and equipment.
According to Mr. Ngom, the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic on the African economy has necessitated a deeper dive into issues of food production, sustainability, and security in the Agricultural sector.
Apart from poultry production in Ghana, they will concurrently venture into poultry feed production using mainly maize and soya.
The feed forms about 70% of the total cost of poultry production hence, the concentration on these two areas will have a great impact on the sector.
Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto in reaction welcomed the delegation intending to boost the poultry production in the Country.
The Sector Minister has also indicated that already the Government has initiated a project that will benefit from a 40% subsidy for a period to attract farmers into the dying broiler production sub-sector Government through MoFA will subsidize the cost of 1,000 – 2000-day old chicks, vaccines and feed for the first two weeks of production by 50%.
Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto noted that there will be strict monitoring and supervision from the Metro, Municipal, District, Regional and National levels to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of the project to deliver on its goals.
“Youth, women, and other beneficiary farmers will be given practical hands-on training in poultry production techniques before their engagement as beneficiaries of this project’ he said.
The Minister also said his outfit has received approval to recruit 1,500 veterinary professionals and financial clearance has been given to recruit 515 of them instantly for national deployment. The rest, he indicated, would be done within two years.
The Minister further noted that the Ministry of Food and Agriculture has also been procuring vehicles, motorbikes bicycles, and other logistics to equip the veterinary service to revamp its operations through intensification of farm visits to ensure biosecurity, depopulation, disinfection, and surveillance to ensure early detection to eliminate the threat to public health.
Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto underscored that the Government is also bringing in the Processing plant which will consist of a slaughtering, cutting, and packaging unit, a Cold van, and a Refrigerated kiosk (mobile slaughtering plant) with a capacity of 300 birds per hour per truck.
In a related development, the Sector Minister also received a team of investors from AfricanGlobal Schaffer, a project development company with over 50 years of experience in the continent of Africa.
At the Ministry, the company was represented by a group of partners who hope to invest in a fully integrated poultry project at Asutsuare here in the Greater Accra Region.
Dr, Afriyie in his welcome address assured them of the government’s readiness through the Ministry to assist in making the project a success and indicated that the Poultry production is an important feature of the country’s agriculture and also a major source of income for our farmers.
So far over 700,000 birds and eggs were culled and destroyed in the country following the outbreak of the bird flu at a poultry farm in July 2021 which led to the spread of the disease across the country.
