Consumers of poultry should be prepared to pay more than fifty percent for purchases they make this Christmas season.
This is a warning from the Greater Accra Poultry Farmers Association who attribute the expected hikes to the incident of maize shortage as well as the reduced import of day-old chicks into the country this year.
poultry farmers across the country were faced with the scarcity and high cost of maize and other ingredients needed for the industry. The situation led to the near-collapse of the industry as many farmers were forced to sell off their birds and ultimately shut down their farms
Again at the time, 5 out of the 55 feed mills in the country also had to shut down.
Aside from this, the poultry industry around the same period this year experienced an outbreak of bird flu which led to the loss of thousands of birds
In an interview with Citi Business News, Board Member of the Greater Accra Poultry Farmers Association, Mr Kwame Ntim Duoduo said a layer that currently sells around GHc20 is likely to shoot up to GHC25 while a broiler which sells at GHC 45 is likely to shoot up to GHC70.
“We expect prices of chicken to go up because of the shortage and the high prices of the raw materials that we use to produce the feed and the vegetation as well so of course, we should expect the prices of both the layer and the broiler to go up. With the layer, we were selling one at about GHc 20 last year but this year we expect it to go up to about GHc25, while the broiler which sold at around GHc 45 will, this year, be sold around GHc65 or GHC 70”.
