‘Work to create more business opportunities along poultry industry value chain’

The West African sub-region has been advised to work assiduously to create more business opportunities along the poultry industry value chain.

It is important that stakeholders worked together to overcome impediments militating against the sub-region’s growth in the industry.

Mr Osei Assibey-Antwi, mayor of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), indicated that: “There is huge market for poultry products on the local scene, which could be exploited in the interest of all given the requisite investment to boost production in the varied sectors of the industry.”

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Kumasi, the mayor said the various governments ought to encourage trading activities amongst themselves for job and wealth creation.

This was on the sideline of a visit by a high-powered Burkinabe delegation to the Feedmill Production Unit of Boris ‘B’ Farms and Veterinary Supplies Company Limited.

The 23-member delegation, led by Mr Roland Pierre Beouinde, the mayor of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, was on a three-day visit to Kumasi, Ghana’s second-largest city, to strengthen bi-lateral ties.

The Feedmill Production Unit exports about 17, 000 tonnes of the company’s feedmill annually to some neighbouring countries, including Togo and Cote d’Ivoire.

Mr Assibey-Antwi said the government was doing its best to support key players in the poultry industry in their activities for increased produtivity.

This is to empower Ghanaian farmers to be able “to produce locally what we eat in order to reduce food imports substantially”.

Mr Beouinde, giving the state of his country’s poultry industry, noted that it contributed about 28.6 per cent to the Burkina Faso agro Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

“There are investment opportunities in terms of modernising the industry, and we look forward to working with our Ghanaian counterparts for development,” he told the GNA.

Burkina Faso, he said, had on year-on-year basis, enhanced its production in guinea fowl, duck, turkey and pigeon, as well as cotton and vegetables, of which the country is the second-largest producer in the sub-region.