Stakeholders in the poultry industry have reiterated its call to the government to implement special policies to help boost local consumption of poultry.
The poultry industry has over the years been characterised by cheaper imported chicken however, the outbreak of the novel coronavirus has changed the narrative.
The industry experienced a spike in demand as the closure of borders limited importation.
As the industry barely gets support from the government, the Greater Accra Poultry Farmers Association has called on restaurants and hotels to patronize local poultry.
Speaking for the Association, the President, Michael Nyarko-Ampem stated that if special policies are created, people will be motivated to get into poultry production.
“We believe that when the hotels are encouraged through policy to patronize locally produced chicken, it will automatically create a market for people to go into the industry and produce.”
He went on to cite Coconut Groove Hotels as an example other in the hospitality sector should emulate. According to him, if hotels and restaurants of high standing also make it a policy to serve only local poultry as done by Coconut Groove Hotels, it will go a long way.
“For instance, Coconut Grove Hotel, they serve purely local poultry and I applaud them. I will wish that the other hotels will also look at it as a national policy, as a way of helping the economy. Even if it is on a 50:50 bases we will still be okay with it.”
According to reports gathered by International news agency, Reuters and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the pandemic has taken a huge toll on workers at U.S. meat and poultry processing facilities, with more than 17,000 COVID-19 cases and nearly 100 deaths in April and May.
This has affected the export of poultry from the US to countries like Ghana, one of its major export markets.
According to the President of the Greater Accra Poultry Farmers Association, the situation has led to a slight increase in the consumption of local poultry products.
Ghana spends over 350 million dollars annually to import poultry products.
Government has indicated its commitment to increase local production and eventually ban importation by the year 2023.
Data shows that in 2017, over 135,000 tonnes of frozen chicken, which is about 112 million birds, was imported from the European Union.
The figure was a 76 per cent increase over what was imported in the previous year.
In estimation, there is an annual increase in chicken consumption of about six per cent in the country.
