Ghana’s poultry industry was nearly destroyed by dumped imports, and it is in difficulties once more despite a very expensive plan to get local production and job creation going again.
The villain, as usual, seems to be the European Union, which has seized a major portion of the Ghanaian poultry market. Many local producers have gone out of business, and those that remain are reduced to producing chicken for sale only during festive seasons.
The sad tale is told in a report on ghanaweb.com which attributes the industry’s current woes to what it suspects are dumped chicken imports, mainly from the Netherlands (35% of imports), Poland (23%) and the United States (22%).
This was not supposed to be, as FairPlay has reported previously (vols 45 and 96). Back in 2016, then Prime Minister John Mahama complained to the United Nations about dumped chicken imports, which local producers said had taken 95% of the Ghanaian market.
So a rescue plan was devised. It was called the Broiler Revitalisation Programme and was financed by an $87 million loan from the African Development Bank. Its first phase was to enable six local companies to produce more than 100 000 birds weekly.
Now, however, according to the ghanaweb report, rising local demand is being met by dumped chicken imports, and the Chamber of Agribusiness Ghana is calling on the government to save the poultry industry.
“Poultry farmers continue to sell their farms; the price of feed products keeps escalating, which is affecting the cost of production. Government must intervene,” said the chamber’s CEO, Anthony Selorm Morrison.
More detail came in another report, which said 400 poultry farms had closed in the past two years, and 70% of those remaining were empty. Ghana’s poultry industry was “near extinction” it said, blaming a surge in chicken imports.
The lesson for South Africa is as clear now as it was in 2016: don’t allow chicken imports to dominate the market and destroy local jobs. If the local industry collapses, it will be difficult and expensive to revive it, with no guarantee of success.
Image: John Mahama, then President of Ghana, addressing the UN General Assembly’s 70th session. UN Photo/Cia Pak CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
