The West Africa Food System Resilience Programme (FSRP) has engaged some lead Ghanaian poultry industry anchor farmers and production groups ahead of the FSRP Poultry Intensification Scheme takeoff.

The scheme targets the production of at least two million broiler birds by the end of this year to contribute to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture’s strategy to revive the broiler industry and increase the rate of adoption of modern and improved climate–resilient poultry production, processing and marketing techniques.

In line with FSRP strategic sub-regional arrangements, Ghana is to focus on Rice, Maize, Soyabeans and broiler Poultry under a $150m World Bank funding, of which $12.5m has been assigned to the first phase of the FSRP Poultry Intensification Scheme to support poultry farmers with inputs.

Each phase of the scheme will run for three years.

At the end of each production year, the anchor farmer would pay-back 70 per cent of the inputs costs and retain 30 per cent of the amount for re-investment into the general operations of the business.

Deliberations centred around critical value chain issues, including feed quality and supply, vaccinations, strict compliance with bio-security requirements, monitoring of the weight and general healthcare of the birds, the quantities to be supplied per cycle, processing and packaging, the timeliness of delivery, the pricing and marketing of frozen processed Ghanaian broilers.

Present at the brainstorming session were lead poultry industrialists, including, Mr. Victor Oppong Agyei, President of the Poultry Farmers Association; Ms. Edith Wheatland, Winner of the 2023 National Best Female Farmer Award and Proprietor of Rockland Farms and Dr Boris Baidoo, Chief Executive Officer of Boris B Chicken, along with the proprietors of Darko Farms, Aglow Farms, and Asamoah and Yamoah Farms, among other heavy-weight Ghanaian poultry industrialists.

The President of the Poultry Farmers Association expressed gratitude to Government and the World Bank for instituting the FSRP Poultry Intensification Scheme and pledged members’ compliance with the modalities of the scheme for the ultimate advancement of the Ghanaian poultry industry.

Senior officials of the Animal Production Department and the Veterinary Services Directorate of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) reminded the industrialists that the quality of their birds, packaging, strict professionalism and perfection in the conduct of poultry business were key to guaranteed ready markets and mass patronage.

Mr Osei Owusu Agyeman, Project Coordinator of FSRP, highlighted the three key guiding principles of FSRP, being Sustainability, Ownership and Public-private partnership and challenged beneficiaries to strive to ensure that the Ghanaian poultry industry thrived and expanded beyond the scheme.

The FSRP Poultry Intensification Scheme has so far completed the first round of selection, during which 29 applicants were shortlisted from 35 applications received.

A total of 22 of the shortlisted are qualified for participation; 16 have been cleared to commence immediately, whiles the remaining six have been put on hold, pending their delivery on final requirements.

Among other quality control and consistency requirements, the criteria for participation demands that applicants must have been in poultry (broiler) production, processing and marketing within the last five years and must be registered with the Registrar General or other statutory body.

They must have linkages with smallholder farmers, must be in the databases of the District Directorate of Agric of their operational areas and must include at least 10 per cent women and 10 per cent youth in both upstream and downstream of the value chain.

Each Anchor Farmer on the scheme is to have the capacity to produce, process and market between 80,000 and 160,000 broilers over four cycles, while each Producer Group is to do the same for between 40,000 and 60,000 broilers over four cycles.

Presentations at the brainstorming session were made by Mr Philip Laryea, FSRP Operations Manager, Dr Abdul Razak Okine, Mr Franklin Yeboah and Mr Ricky Aboagye Poku of the Animal Production Department (MoFA); Dr Theophilus Odoom, Veterinary Services Directorate of MoFA; Mr Ben Johnson, FSRP Financial Management Specialist and Mr Geoff Annoh, FSRP Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist.