Agona Swedru, Nov 28, GNA - Mr John Kwesi Agyabeng, District Chief Executive for Agona, said on Thursday that the Assembly has disbursed 100 million cedis to small and medium scale poultry farmers to improve their ventures.

He noted that the facility under the Poverty Alleviation Fund was designed to by the Assembly to buy day-old chicks and poultry feed for farmers on credit basis to expand their businesses.

Mr Agyabeng was speaking at a seminar organised by the Agona Swedru branch of the Progressive Poultry Farmers Association and sponsored by the Afariwa Farms limited.

He said the Assembly initiated the programme since the Poultry farmers could not meet the demand for poultry products in the district.

The DCE said that many poultry farms had collapsed due to lack of financial support and mismanagement and expressed the hope that the seminar would go a long way to boost the industry.

Mr Agyabeng said that the government had lodged a substantial amount of money at Agricultural Development Bank(ADB) to buy poultry feeds and chicks for farmers on credit basis and urged them to work hard to repay the facility.

The DCE regretted many poultry farmers were not receiving credit facilities because most of them had taken the venture as part time business, which does not encourage banks to grant loans and other forms of assistance.

Mr Samuel Kweku Obodai, MP for Agona West, urged them to be innovative and to adopt modern techniques to produce feed and other inputs locally and using local raw materials.

He said statistics at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture indicated local farmers produce only a fraction of the country's poultry needs and urged them to wok hard to reverse the trend.

The MP appealed to large-scale poultry farmers to give technical assistance to the small and medium scale farmers to increase production.

Mr Ekow Bafoe, Chairman of the Association, said the members came together to enable them solicit financial and other form of assistance from the government and agencies to improve their businesses.

He appealed to the Minister of Food and Agriculture to assist them with feeds, birds, chemicals and ready market for their products, adding that, marketing has become a major problem facing the farmers especially the small and medium scale ones.