The effects of EPA & IMF Conditionality

Workers to lose jobs as Afrifa farms shut down hatchery

Nana Kofi Kwakye opens the last hatchery on his farm as he continues his tour of the farm with me and a colleague from the Washington Post. Nana is the manager in charge of the hatchery at Afrifa farms.

As he dips his hands into one of the plastic crates containing day old chicks, he informs us that approximately three thousand day old chicks have been hatched and are ready to be sold out. That figure is however a far departure from the sixteen thousand a week production level some time back.

Nana Kwakye tells us that the current batch of day old chicks is the last they will be producing because they have decided to shut down the facility as a result of financial constraints.

“Because the parent stock has been sold,” he explained to the dailyEXPRESS at his farm located in Hebron on the Accra- Nsawam road, “the money is not there to produce more.”

Nana Kwakye who was dressed in white boots and long sleeve factory shirt said the final closure of the last hatchery means the company will have to cut down its staff strength. The company currently has thirty (35) workers, ten out of which will have to be laid off.

Explaining, Nana Kwakye said the prevailing financial difficulties have necessitated the decision, adding that it is not the first time they have taken such a drastic measure. The first was in 2006 when about 40 workers were dismissed following the outbreak of the bird flu which resulted in the farm destroying 12,000 frozen birds estimaed at GHc1,000,000.

Afrifa farms like other poultry farms, he explained, have had rough times, forcing them to either shut down the entire production plant or a section of it. He stated that it is unacceptable for developed countries to give huge subsidies to their farmers while asking poor countries to cut off theirs. He said subisides should not necessarily come in the form of money but feed, vaccines, fishmeal and related items that would enable them increase their production level to meet the demands of the public.

He noted that what is said to be fair trade is nothing more than exploitation. Nana Kwakye also blamed the difficulties in the industry on the previous policies by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. He said the Fund’s conditions implemented in the past are having a very negative impact on the industry, leading to the loss of jobs in several farms.

According to him, another area that the company has been forced to shut is its frozen outlet.The decision , he said, was taken mainly because of the importation of cheap and at times unhealthy frozen meats from Europe and elsewhere.

“It’s like you’re giving the animal to the owner but you’re holding the tail.”

On the recent signing of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA Lite) between the government and the European Union, the owner of the farm, Maxwell Kwaku Afrifa said he does not see anything different that the EU will bring to the industry. He said the same old story of the western companies having unrestrained access to the Ghanaian market will still be there.

Most companies, he mentioned, do not have the capacity to produce even half of what their counterparts produce in Europe and it’s therefore unreasonable for anyone to start talking about helping Ghanaian companies have access to the EU market when they don’t have that capacity. He disclosed that the company had to close down its frozen chicken outlet due to the importation of similar products from outside.

He said bitterly that the decision by developed countries under the so-called World Trade Organisation convention that subsidy be cut by developing countries “are killing us.” He also mentioned the excessive importation of poultry products into the country as one key challenge that has forced most farms to shut down.