One of his first announcements by Ghana's incoming minister of agriculture was a pledge of support to reinvigorate Ghanaian poultry farming.
Following a landslide victory for John Mahama in the presidential election in December, Eric Opoku was appointed minister-designate for Food and Agriculture.
In order to boost Ghana’s economy and ensure national food security, Opoku has pledged government support for the industry, reports Ghana Web.
Domestic production is facing a crisis, he said, identifying some of the sector’s biggest challenges as high feed costs, and competition from cheaper poultry meat imports.
To ease the first of these pressures, the official pledged to prioritize the availability of affordable chicken feeds, launching a key element of the new administration’s manifesto. Describing the proposed “Poultry Farm to Table” as ambitious, he said the government will work together with poultry associations and other industry stakeholders to expand businesses and raise production levels. With financial support from the government, the program aims to improve production efficiency, and streamline poultry supply chains.
“We cannot afford to let this sector, which has so much potential, continue to struggle,” said Opoku. “Under my leadership, we will work tirelessly to turn things around.”
Poultry production in Ghana
Most recent figure for domestic chicken meat output is 50,482 metric tons (mt). This is according to the statistics arm of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, FAOstat, and for 2023 — the most recent year for which data have been released. It represents a marginal increase compared with 2022.
However, Ghanaian hen egg production was up close to 15% year-on-year in 2023 at 74,374mt.
In the same year, Ghana’s human population was 33.8 million, according to the World Bank.
Ghana’s heavy dependence on imported chicken was highlighted in a report by the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) from February of 2024. At that time, the agency was forecasting Ghanaian chicken imports for the marketing year 2024 at 270,000mt. This source puts the level of self-sufficiency for the meat at just 5%.
The figure was unchanged from the previous 12 months, despite announcements of generous government support for the poultry industry under the previous administration.
As much as 90% of Ghanaian chicken production is from spent hens, with local broiler chickens making up around 5% of the domestic total.
Imports are controlled by the issuance of permits, and with a tariff of 35%. Leading sources of imported broiler chicken meat into Ghana in 2023 were the Netherlands, the U.S., Poland, Brazil, and Belgium.
While imports are generally in the form of frozen cuts, most domestic production is sold as live birds at market. The latter is significantly more expensive — with the premium amounting to close to 50% in 2023, according to FAS.
