Poultry farmers in the Central Dormaa Municipality of the Bono Region in Ghana are worried over the increasing cost of poultry feed that is collapsing their economic activities
They said the high cost had consequently led to the high demand of maize, which resulted in rising prices of maize. In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Dormaa-Ahenkro, the farmers said increment in the poultry feed was due to taxes, and appealed to the government for price subsidy.
Dei Kusi, chairman of the Dormaa Poultry Farmers Association said the poultry industry in the area was on the verge of collapse. Kusi appealed to the government to also encourage poultry and maize farmers to engage in commercial production of the crop.
“Many of us have decided to sell our birds and take up different businesses because we are operating at a loss,” Samuel Sarfo, a poultry farmer at Dormaa-Ahenkro told the GNA, adding that the cost of production is extremely high.
Meanwhile, Drissa Quattara, the Dormaa central municipal chief executive has advised the poultry farmers in the municipality to be patient, as the government worked out modalities to address their concerns. He said the COVID-19 pandemic had had a huge impact on the global economy and the government is doing everything possible to stabilise the local economy.
“The assembly had nursed and distributed 270,000 cashew seedlings to farmers under the Planting for Export and Rural Development (PERD) programme adding quantities of cocoa seed had also been supplied to cocoa farmers as well. Under the One-District-One Factory (1D1F), the government has supported private developers to establish a crate factory at Korang for storage of eggs as well as a broiler factory at Nanasuano in the Dormaa East District,” he added.
Quattara advised farmers to form groups to enable them to easily access financial assistance and also coordinate with Agriculture Extension Agents to be introduced to new technologies to expand their farm work. He assured the assembly would ensure equitable distribution of development projects in the municipality, and asked the people to pay their taxes and rates for the assembly to generate the required resources needed for development.
