Challenges in poultry farming in Ghana have led to most poultry businesses’ collapse.
If not for all the victims I can identify with, entering into business in the poultry sector in Ghana over the last two years has been difficult. Speaking about the high cost of chicken feed prices on the Ghanaian market, as a result of scarcity and high prices on major feed ingredients such as maize and soybean.
Governmental policy problems, market pricing standards, farmer expertise, zero insurance in the poultry industry, and buyer behavior are the challenges faced in the poultry farming sector in Ghana.
What are the challenges in poultry farming
In 2021, there was an upswing of 20% increase (50,000 mt), which decreased about 14% compared to 2020 (57,000 mt) in broiler production in Ghana. Is the government to blame for the poor rate of production growth in the context of increasing consumption of imported chicken products?
Government policy on revamping poultry in Ghana
To enforce a mandate from Ghana’s President, the Bank of Ghana restricted access to foreign exchange for a select list of imported products, including rice, chicken, vegetable oils, and pasta. On October 31, 2022, Ghana’s President addressed the public on his government’s plan to deal with the country’s economic issues in 2022.
He imposed a six-month ban on some imported commodities that Ghana can and does make domestically in his address. In the fiscal year 2021, chicken meat and products from the United States were the biggest agricultural export to Ghana, reaching a record high of $92.6 million. Through September 2022, US chicken meat exports will be 31% less.
Domestic chicken production now meets just 2% of national demands, and the recent avian flu on some farms in the country does not help to improve the situation. It is hoped that the government’s efforts to revitalize Ghana’s poultry industry would be sustainable in the long run.
Market pricing standards
Only a tiny number of certified producers sell goods to the market in the country. Every farmer suffers his or her own production cost when purchasing farm inputs from suppliers, including transport costs, resulting in price variances for agricultural products utilized by farmers, such as maize, soybeans, and wheat bran in different locations.
For example, the price of an egg crate in Greater Accra will differ from the price in Ashanti. Farmers often have no choice but to deal with the situation, but how long can you do so when you generate no profit from your business?
Farmer expertise
Talking about farmer knowledge, most poultry farms are managed by individuals who inherited the poultry farm and runs it with the old knowledge learned from parents without advancing; the second group of individual is those who inherited the poultry business, advanced and built it the modern way like Dr. Kwabena Darko (owner of Darko Farms Ghana), and the third category of poultry farmers are the schooled businessmen with enough capital to establish a poultry farm.
The first type of poultry producer has less modern expertise and accounts for the majority of poultry farmers in Ghana. Adopting new knowledge, such as biosecurity in poultry, is a key issue, as good farm management practices, records keeping, and marketing tactics influence poultry production in Ghana as a whole.
0% insurance policy coverage in the poultry industry
I’m not an aspect in insurance; however, assessing the risks involved in agriculture with sudden natural disasters (flooding destroyed poultry farms in Ghana) wiping out the whole in investment, you may not find any insurance policy to cover the poultry farm. Allianz Agric Insurance does well in protecting farmer base societies and a few listed categories of agriculture you can contact for more inquiries.
Buyer behavior
Another difficulty in Ghana’s poultry business, extending from the breeder stage through hatcheries, chicken production, and the poultry market in general, is buyer behavior. True, there are few hatcheries in Ghana that supply day-old chicks, but a big concern is the scarcity of high-quality day-old chicks. Because of this fear of the unknown, many farmers prefer to import day-old chicks at a high cost rather than buy from local hatcheries.
With a glut of frozen chicken on the market, local chicken meat producers cannot compete with the low rates at which they are marketed. Because of the oversupply of frozen chicken, locally produced meat is being marketed at low rates despite the high production costs.
In summary, the lucrativeness of the poultry business seen from the angle of successful poultry farms in Ghana is not something they had on a silver platter. Starting and running a successful poultry farm in Ghana takes more than effort and sacrifice.
