President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo says government will work hard to meet domestic poultry production targets set for the year.

This will ensure that the country reduces its imports of poultry products and be food self-sufficient.

“Poultry, obviously, requires extra attention, and that is exactly what we are doing. We have every intention of meeting the domestic production targets for poultry this year, 2024, and moving onto production levels that will lead to reduction in poultry imports,” the President said.

He made the commitment when he delivered the State of the Nation Address 2024 (SONA) in Parliament on February 27, 2024.

This is in accordance with Article 67 of the 1992 Constitution, which imposes an obligation on him to deliver SONA at the beginning of each session of Parliament and before the dissolution of parliament.

The pledge to focus on poultry this year is because of the country’s failure to meet the 2023 targets it set for itself.

President Akufo-Addo said that to increase food sufficiency in the country, government reviewed one of its priority programmes - Planting for Food and Jobs.

He noted under the review, a five-year agenda, which would see to the production of eleven products from September 2023 to December 2026 to ensure food security was put in place.

He indicated that all products – maize, rice, soybean, sorghum, tomato, pepper, onion, cassava, yam, and plantain – all yielded the expected production targets except poultry, hence the pledge to pay more attention to the industry.

“Mr Speaker, there is no argument that food self-sufficiency is the basic requirement for national security and the foundation for building a prosperous nation. Last year, Government reviewed the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) Programme, which had been implemented since 2017.

“The second phase of the PFJ sets out a 5-year agenda to ensure food self-sufficiency and resilience. Strategic targets have been set for eleven (11) priority products in the immediate term (September to December 2023), short term (year 2024), medium term (2025 -2026), and the long term (2027-2028). The selected products are maize, rice, soybean, sorghum, tomato, pepper, onion, cassava, yam, plantain and poultry.

“Mr. Speaker, I am happy to report that production estimates for these priority products revealed that the planned targets for the year have been exceeded for all the products, except poultry. Poultry, obviously, requires extra attention, and that is exactly what we are doing,” he said.

Prior to this, some players in the poultry industry called on the President to implement sound policies for the growth of the sector.