Mr Owusu Banahene, the Sunyani Municipal Director of Ministry of Food and Agriculture has assured poultry farmers of ready market under the ‘Nkoko Nketenkete’ initiative.
He said the phase of the pilot programme had distributed 10,000 birds to 200 registered poultry farmers in the Municipality with each of the farmers receiving 50 chicks.
Mr Banahene said the government was collaborating with some companies in the poultry value chain to build storage and processing facilities that would provide ready markets for the poultry farmers and thereby sustain the implementation of the programme.
“In fact, the government is now engaging some actors in the poultry value chain like off-takers and financial institutions to help in providing ready markets for the farmers”, Mr Banahene told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview in Sunyani.
He said the agriculture directorate was also providing technical support, feeding and medication to enable the beneficiary farmers to nurture the birds well and urged the farmers to also take good care of the animals for the nation to derive the optimum benefit.
He said the government and its partners would invest in the construction of cold rooms too under the Feed Ghana, an initiative aimed at enhancing the nation’s agro-industrial growth and expanding job opportunities.
Mr Banahene said the implementation of the “Nkoko Nkenkete” programme was very dear to the agriculture directorate because the initiative would produce quality local poultry products to feed the nation.
He called on the government to expedite action for the building of the cold rooms, urging the various coordinators of the programme to also monitor and deepen their engagement with the beneficiary poultry farmers.
By Christopher Tetteh, GNA