Mamponteng (Ash), Jan. 22, GNA - Doctor Thomas Addai, Deputy Director of Veterinary Services has called on livestock farmers to form groups to be able to access credits from financial institutions to meet their livestock input requirements.

He said with the institution of the national livestock project, all service providers and other stakeholders in the livestock industry would be expected to lend a helping hand for the nation to meet its targeted 80 percent meat requirement.

Dr Addai, who is also the Deputy Ashanti Regional Director of Agriculture, was addressing a day's seminar on African Swine Fever (ASF) for 100 pig farmers and other stakeholders from Kwabre District at Mamponteng on Wednesday.

The seminar, organised by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA), the Directorate of Veterinary Services and the Kwabre District Assembly with sponsorship from the European Union, was to sensitise the participants on the contagious ASF with a view to soliciting support for its control.

The seminar, the third in a series in the Ashanti Region, after Kumasi and Ejisu, was also on information education and communication campaigns on the seriousness of the disease and how to address it at all levels.

Dr Addai said currently, Ghana produces 30 percent of its meat requirement and said it was expected that by the year 2015 the national requirement of 80 percent would be achieved.

Dr Richard Suu-Ire, Wildlife Veterinarian at the Accra Zoo, observed that, wild animals are carriers of many diseases and therefore serve as a source of infection for man or domestic animals.

He said the ASF, formerly a disease of wild pig, had now begun afflicting domestic pigs, stressing that its control, was very difficult and that there is the need for all stakeholders to do their best to halt behaviours that would spread the disease.

Dr Kwesi Nipah, Head of the Veterinary Epidemiology of the Veterinary Services in Accra, said ASF first occurred in Ghana in 1909 and that it was not easy to identify the disease until specimen were observed under special machines.

Dr Kofi Kwansah-Filson, Kwabre District Director of Agriculture asked both the farmers and Extension Agents to work hard to increase meat production in the country.

He said his office was open to all farmers and they should therefore not hesitate to call with their problems to be addressed.