The Technical Team Lead of the Ghana Poultry Project (GPP), Mr Raymond Denteh, has urged farmers to take advantage of opportunities in the poultry value chain to improve their market share.

That, he said, was crucial to improve fortunes of the farmers and the sector as a whole and save the country several millions of funds in the area of import substitution.

Speaking to the media at a two-day Poultry Masterclass for Workers and Retirees in Accra, Mr Denteh stated that there were many opportunities along the poultry value chain for prospective farmers.

The Masterclass

The masterclass was held to expose some of the opportunities in the sector, as well as attract investment for workers and retirees with interest in the industry.

It is an initiative of the Ghana Poultry Project (GPP), funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and implemented by ACDI/VOCA and TechnoServe.

It is a five-year project established to increase the competitiveness of the domestic production and processing of poultry meat and eggs. It will end in September this year.

The project seeks to increase agricultural productivity in the poultry value chain through capacity building, improving input markets and promoting strategic investments and private-public partnerships.

It also seeks to increase the trade of poultry products by improving product quality, increasing production efficiency and improving market linkages.

Invest in poultry

Mr Denteh noted that pensioners grappled with where to invest their life earnings and often invested in schemes that ended up not offering the financial rewards they desired.

Hence, he said the masterclass was designed specifically for workers and those about to go on pension.

He noted that there were a lot of opportunities along the poultry value chain and advised prospective farmers to begin small and do it well before they could reap the rewards that came with the venture.

He said the two-day event was held virtually across the globe to expose people to the opportunities in the poultry sector.

The GPP official acquiesced that feed inputs such as maize, soya and wheat bran were scarce and the problem began in December 2020.

The team lead observed that it was a perennial problem which he ascribed to bad farming practices such as planting maize once a year in the major season.

He stated that without feed, it was virtually impossible to operate a poultry farm since feed was an important aspect of the enterprise.

The two-day event was held on July 13 and 14 in Accra and targeted workers and retirees looking for investment opportunities along the poultry value chain.

RansBoat Farms

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of RansBoat Farms, Nsawam, Mr Ransford Atiemo, gave participants useful tips and first-hand knowledge on poultry farming and how to source financial assistance to expand their operations.

Mr Atiemo, who owns roughly 73,000 birds and produces between 1,500 and 1,600 crates of eggs per day, appealed to the government to provide tax incentives for poultry farmers to sustain the industry.

He urged the government to patronise eggs for the School Feeding Programme instead of importing mackerel tin fish.