The Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) has introduced new breeds of goats and sheep to boost livestock production in the Birim Central Municipal.

The project is aimed at increasing the population of small ruminants like sheep and goats and to promote higher protein intake in the Municipality, as well as enhance the economic standard of farmers.

This was disclosed by the Municipal Director of Agriculture, Mr Anthony K. Prah to the Ghana News Agency Media Auditing and Tracking of Development Project Team recently at Akim Oda.

He explained that, the programme is under the West Africa Productivity two (WAAP2) programme of MOFA. Mr Francis Yaw Amedzrator, the Municipal Agricultural Officer in-charge of livestock said, WAAP2 was introduced last year in the Eastern Region.

Mr. Amedzrator explained that, under the project, four females and a male sheep or goats are given to farmers who have the interest and also meet the requirement in terms of shelter and accessibility to water and feed.

He said the farmers, who were selected, were given special training to equip them with modern techniques in animal rearing to improve upon their productivity.

Mr Amedzrator said, after two years, the farmers who were given the new breed would in turn give out the same quantity of animals to another set of farmers for the project to continue.

He said, the challenge faced by the Agriculture Extension Agents, under the project, is the poor nature of roads to certain villages like Badukrom, Tabita and Nyamenti among others, making monitoring and supervision difficult and appealed to the Department of Feeder Roads and the Municipal Assembly to rehabilitate the roads.