Two recent reports sound the death knell for Ghana’s chicken industry as a result of dumped chicken imports, primarily from Europe. South Africa will go the same way and at an accelerated rate if our government does not take the actions necessary now to protect one of our country’s most important strategic industries from the prospect of total annihilation by trade predators.
Germany’s public international broadcaster, Deutsche Welle (DW), recently ran a televised feature story “Ghana’s Last Poultry Farmers” which examines the impact of massive imports from Europe, Brazil and the US.
A decade ago Ghanaians produced 80 percent of broilers themselves, but now production has plunged to less than 5 percent of demand. According to DW’s report, because of Europeans’ preference for chicken breast, unwanted leftover chicken parts are being dumped into Africa at prices well below the costs of production. The report also notes: “poultry farmers say one government after another has let them down”.
The EU’s own published data reveals that chicken exports to Ghana more than doubled between 2015 and 2018.
Another report by EPAMonitoring notes that Sub-Saharan African markets accounted for 43.2% of total extra-EU poultry meat exports in 2018. But more alarmingly the trend in EU exports to Africa continues in 2019. Exports to South Africa in the first 2 months of 2019 grew some 140%, Meanwhile EU exports to the DRC and Ghana increased respectively 43% and 38%.
EPA Monitoring concludes: “The ongoing huge expansion of EU poultry meat exports to Ghana, which have increased four-fold since 2010 would appear to represent the final nail in the coffin of the poultry production in Ghana.”