The government is determined to directly invest in the livestock and poultry sectors to increase the per capita consumption of meat per person in the country from 11 to 22 kilogrammes by 2050.
This is because meat consumption in Ghana, according to statistics, remains one of the lowest in the sub-Saharan region, as well as on the continent.
A Deputy Minister of Agriculture in charge of Livestock, Dr Alfred Tia Sugri, who announced this at a meeting of experts on livestock in Africa in Accra on Tuesday, said the country’s investment in the agricultural sector had been in favour of crop farming, adding that the government now sought to change the policy to invest more in the livestock and poultry sectors.
He said as a first step, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) had launched the Cockerel Project to enhance food security and increase the intake of animal protein by distributing high quality cockerels to upgrade local breeds of poultry in the villages.
He said another project, the Credit in Kind Scheme under the Livestock Project, had earmarked 21,000 sheep and goats for distribution to Ghanaian farmers to help improve the number of ruminants in 35 districts of the country.
The deputy minister said pig production, with youth groups as commercial producers using the value chain approach, was underway in some parts of the country.
He further said MoFA was establishing legume fodder gardens for feeding ruminants. It was also adopting environmentally sound and sustainable measures, including the promotion of effective livestock housing, to ensure the use of animal dung for manure and biogas production.
Dr Sugri said those measures were not being carried out in a vacuum and that mobile and tele-veterinary medical clinics in the communities were being strengthened to provide animal health care for the numerous livestock schemes in the country.
The FAO Assistant Director-General/Regional Representative for Africa, Ms Maria Helena Semedo, who organised the conference of experts, said the livestock revolution which had hit the world was yet to come to sub-Saharan Africa due to numerous constraints.
Instead, she said, the importation of livestock products by countries in the sub-region was increasing, saying that was an important issue for African producers who were already facing constraints in production, processing and accessing markets.
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