Poultry farmers lament impact of drought on production; warn available feed may last one month

Poultry farmers in the country say the current drought that has led to the shortage of grains poses a serious threat to the industry as they run out of feed for their birds.

The farmers have disclosed that most of them have feed that could last for only one month.

Speaking in an interview, the Chairperson of the Greater Accra Poultry Farmers Association of Ghana, Gifty Rodor, said farmers are likely to lose their birds if the cost of feed goes up as result of the drought in the country.

“As I speak most poultry farmers do not even have maize to process into poultry feed. The search we have done shows that approximately by the end of September, farmers may not get feed to feed their poultry”, she said.

She added that farmers are already battling with high prices of feed due to the increasing cost of grains.

“Five years ago we faced the same issue. This is the reason why cheap frozen chicken are dumped in Ghana. This is killing the local poultry industry”, she lamented.

Ms. Rodor appealed to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to come to the aid of farmers and support them.

“We have written a letter to the minister about 3 weeks ago telling him about the situation and how it will impact poultry production. We are begging him to respond to our letter”, she pleaded.

Import of poultry

The importation of poultry products amounted to approximately GH¢868.8 million, about 7.7% of total imports in 2023.

Recent statistics indicate that as of 2020 the poultry industry contributed to about 16% of the total livestock production in Ghana.

The sector achieved an annual production of over 128,000 metric tons of poultry meat and nearly 2.3 billion eggs. The national demand for poultry meat alone is about 400,000 metric tons with local production of just about 57,871 metric tons.