Dr John Kofi Mensah (3rd right) presenting the dummy cheque to Mr Daniel Akwah (3rd left), MD of ADF Farms, and other poultry value chain beneficiaries The Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) has begun the disbursement of the GH¢500 million fund earmarked to revitalise the poultry sector in the country.
Yesterday, the bank presented a cheque for GH¢23 million to six business entities in the poultry value chain in the Bono Region, representing the first tranche of the investment in the poultry sector.
The beneficiary entities are made up of one hatchery, one feed miller, three producers and one processor, making it a circular value chain that relies on one another to ensure successful productivity.
The initiative, which aims to invest GH¢500 million in soft loans, with an interest rate of 10 per cent annually, in businesses in the poultry value chain to help de-risk their operations, increase production and reduce imports.
It is in partnership with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), the Bank of Ghana (BoG), the Ghana Incentive-based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (GIRSAL) and the Outgrower and Value Chain Fund (OVCF) and meant to end the country’s dependence on imported poultry products and create jobs for the youth.
Ghana currently spends $375 million importing 240,000 tonnes of meat annually to meet the national annual requirement of 400,000 tonnes.
Broiler Revitalisation Programme
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The Managing Director (MD) of the ADB, Dr John Kofi Mensah, said the initiative was the bank’s support for the government’s Broiler Revitalisation Programme aimed at increasing the domestic production of chicken.
Describing the project as the first of its kind in the country, he said it was the bank’s contribution to help move the government’s Rearing for Food and Jobs programme. He announced that the project would ensure that 108,000 birds were produced per week to serve the local market.He expressed the conviction that when the project was religiously implemented, it would ensure that in the next two years Ghana would not import poultry. Value chain investment Dr Mensah, who was supported by the Deputy Managing Director of the bank, Mr Alhassan Yakubu Tali, to make the presentation, explained that unlike other projects in which there might be various financiers at each level, with their own terms and timing, “in this one the ADB is managing everybody on the value chain because we want to ensure that the output of one fits into the input of […]