President John Dramani Mahama has announced that new poultry processing plants will be constructed across the country to support the upcoming Nkokɔ Nkitinkiti project, a national poultry initiative aimed at increasing local chicken production and reducing imports.
Speaking about the project, which is set to be launched next month, President Mahama explained that the initiative will operate in three layers, targeting large-scale, medium-scale, and household-level producers.
“Next month we’re going to launch the Nkokɔ Nkitinkiti project. It is going to have three layers. The first will be the large-scale producers. They are going to get about 4 million day-old chicks. The second will be the medium-scale producers. They’ll get about 3 million day-old chicks,” he said when he visited the National Service Authority Papao Farms on Friday, September 12.
He added that young entrepreneurs and households will form the third group, with full support from the government in setting up and running small-scale poultry farms.
“Every household, every young entrepreneur who signs up, you identify your site, your chicken house and then we’ll give you the day-old chicks, and we’ll also supply you with the feed. We’ll also vaccinate the day-old chicks for you,” he said.
After raising the birds, farmers will sell them back to the government, which will process and package the chicken under the Nkokɔ Nkitinkiti brand.
“So yours is just to feed them and let them grow. And after the chickens are grown, we will come to your farm and buy all the chickens from you and give you your next set of day-old chicks,” Mahama assured.
To handle this large-scale production, President Mahama announced that processing plants will be established in multiple regions. He said the first of these plants is currently undergoing procurement, and construction will begin once approved.
“And so we’re going to build processing plants in different parts of the country. And the first processing plant is going through procurement. And once the procurement authority approves it, we’ll start to construct it,” he said.
“Other parts of the country would also have processing plants. So when we buy the chicks off you, we’ll take them to the processing plants. We’ll process the chickens and package them nicely with Nkokɔ Nkitinkiti brand on them.”
The packaged products will then be distributed to supermarkets and cold store operators nationwide, forming a full farm-to-market chain under the project.
“This will help us to cut our huge poultry import bill. We should be able to produce enough poultry to feed the whole of Ghana,” President Mahama emphasised.
He added that with full implementation, Ghana could achieve near-total self-sufficiency in poultry within three years.
“Once the Nkokɔ Nkitinkiti project takes off, we believe that in three years, we’ll be producing almost 100% of the chicken that we eat in Ghana ourselves. So that we can stop bringing nkokɔfunu from outside. We don’t know how those chickens were raised.”
Highlighting health concerns about imported chicken, he noted, “In many of the countries, they use genetically modified chickens. In many countries, they inject the chickens with hormones. We want fresh Ghanaian-grown chicken, so that our people can live a healthy life.”
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