Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Loudorph Farms, Daniel Dolling has blamed the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto for the shortage of poultry feed on the Ghanaian market.
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According to him, there was an abundance of maize, the primary feed for birds this year but instead of storing them up, the Minister of Agric encouraged maize farmers to sell them to neighboring countries, hence the shortage.
Daniel Dolling lamenting on the shortage said, “In short I blame the Minister of Agriculture, that’s it. I blame him because the Planting for Food and Jobs went well and he allowed farmers to export the maize to other neighboring countries meanwhile it wasn’t sufficient for us. We warned him about his action but he refused to listen.”
To him, the Minister was of the opinion maize farmers were profiting from their labour “and that has brought us to this place and we are suffering this mess. So to me frankly, he has failed and should be fired,” he told the HappyFM/e.TV team which visited his farm.
According to the Ghana Poultry Farmers Association, an acute shortage of feed is threatening the survival of the country’s poultry industry.
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Added to this is an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza in the country.
The high cost of feed is mainly due to the increasing price of maize, which constitutes a significant portion of poultry feed.
Furthermore, the prices of other feed ingredients, including wheat bran, have also increased, which he attributes to the uncharacteristic low rainfall during the 2021 season.
