As part of the Rearing for Food and Jobs programme, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) is helping two anchor farms scale up chicken production and processing.

The Ashanti Region's Rockland and Boris B Farms are the two anchor farms taking advantage of the project, which aims to reduce the importation of poultry goods and create jobs.

The beneficiary farms are given a 50% subsidy on feed, vaccines, and day-old chicks under the "The Broiler Project" initiative, which encourages farmers to increase production in response to local demand for chicken.

As a further incentive for the recipient farmers to grow their enterprises, the government, through the Obaatanpa Cares Program, is subsidizing 50% of the interest on bank loans for them.

The two farms, which are also into processing of poultry products, work closely with other out-grower farms who supply them with broilers for processing onto the market.

This is to encourage the beneficiary farms to increase production through the creation of ready market while promoting the consumption of local poultry.

A team of officials from MoFA and the Finance Ministry were in the Ashanti Region to monitor the progress of the project and expressed the belief that it would yield the expected dividend if sustained and extended to more anchor farmers across the country.

The Director of Animal Production MoFA, Mr Edwin Bekoe led the team to visit the processing units of the farms, and some selected out growers.

The members were taken through the various stages of processing and packaging poultry meat as workers of the facilities engaged in their daily routine.

Mr Bekoe applauded them for adding value to local bird production while creating jobs for Ghanaians.

One of the major problems the project sought to address was the large-scale importation of chicken as a country, he said, and that building the capacity of local farmers was necessary to address the perennial challenge.

The initial plan, according to the Director, was to engage as many poultry farmers as possible, but a lot of challenges were encountered hence the decision to target anchor farmers, who had the capacity to process poultry meat and bring other out growers on board.

Mr Bekoe said as financing the project suffered a setback due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Obaatan Cares Programme stepped in to subsidise 50 per cent of interest on loans for the farmers.

“The ultimate goal is to achieve zero importation of chicken, but it will take us a few years to get there looking at the gap and the current economic crisis,” he said.

A Technical Officer at the Ministry of Finance, Mr Michael Baidoo said the intervention by Obaatanpa Cares was to make funds accessible to the farmers to grow their businesses.

He said the team was impressed with the level of productivity at the processing units and expressed the readiness of the programme to support them to achieve the desired results.

The Chief Executive Officer of Rockland Farms, Ms Edith Akosah Wheatland, said her outfit had the capacity to process 5,000 birds a day and that the vision was to establish a bigger factory to process eight million birds a year.

She said the intervention by the government was a step in the right direction to spur growth but more could be done in the form of tax waiver to make the local poultry industry competitive.

Mr Boris Baidoo, the Chief Executive Officer of Boris B Farms, commended the Government for the support and called for investment in machinery.

Source: MyJoyOnline