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By Ad Bal
With a population of about 24 million people, Ghana is one of the growing economies in West Africa. Yet, it is a developing country and buying power is still limited. Logically, its poultry industry is developing on a limited scale. Since there are hardly any import limitations, major shipments of poultry meat are imported from Europe and Brazil.As a result, there’s hardly any broiler business in Ghana as broiler growers are unable to produce competitively because of the low prices of imported meat. In the period prior to Christmas there’s a growing demand for live chicken, particularly to be used as a gift. To meet this temporary demand, most producers in Ghana are growing a small volume of broilers for the occasion. But after Christmas they fully focus on producing eggs again. This is fairly easy since a large volume of chickens are kept in “deep litter” or free range houses. Logically, this creates pressure on the egg market. Yet, the specialised egg producers in Ghana seem to be able to keep their business running. They all have their own approach which keeps them in the market place.
Broiler-layer ratio
Kenneth Quartey runs the Sydals layer farm near Ghana’s capital Accra. On this family owned business, about 120,000 caged layers are kept. Although the egg market in Ghana is predominantly brown, Quartey is also keeping white birds. “This is just a matter of efficiency”, he says. “We can keep four white layers in one cage, compared to three brown birds. And we have got to be as efficient as possible, because margins are small in this country.
Kenneth Quartey runs the Sydals layer farm near Ghana’s capital Accra. On this family owned business, about 120,000 caged layers are kept. Although the egg market in Ghana is predominantly brown, Quartey is also keeping white birds. “This is just a matter of efficiency”, he says. “We can keep four white layers in one cage, compared to three brown birds. And we have got to be as efficient as possible, because margins are small in this country.
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| Kenneth Quartey: “The broiler-layer ratio in Ghana should at least be about 15:1”. | Kenneth Quartey keeps four white layers in one cage, compared to three in the event of brown. | Manual labour is still very much involved in egg collection. |
We produce under difficult circumstances with high expenses, primarily for feed ingredients. So we need to have economy of scale to produce efficiently. The demand for white eggs is equal as for brown, so that’s not a problem. We import our day old chicks from the Netherlands. Although these are about 70% more expensive than locally sourced chicks, we are convinced that this will pay off. We are sure that imported chicks will have come from excellent parent stock. Moreover they have been properly vaccinated in the hatchery. Hatcheries in Ghana simply cannot provide this quality as there is no economy of scale in general in this country, to produce high quality chicks. This has to do with the fact that a decent broiler industry is failing in Ghana.
Since most broiler meat is currently imported, domestic producers are unable to compete with this imported meat. Domestic production is much more expensive and incomes are very low, so there’s no chance for a good broiler business in Ghana. There is hardly any fresh market and as a result, domestic production has gone down to a minimum. Hence only layer chicks are hatched in Ghana and for that reason the hatcheries only produce a relatively small volume. Progress in technology is therefore unaffordable. The broiler-layer ratio should at least be about 15:1 in order to create critical mass and economy of scale. Unfortunately that is not the case and this keeps the poultry industry on a standstill.”
Imported chicks
“We have no other choice but to import our day-olds and that runs well”, Quartey continues. “These are of an excellent quality with fewer diseases, less mortality and persistent production. We have good suppliers, from whom we buy some ISA and primarily Lohmann chicks. Particularly the latter are doing well all the time because they don’t respond to changing conditions so easily.”
“We have no other choice but to import our day-olds and that runs well”, Quartey continues. “These are of an excellent quality with fewer diseases, less mortality and persistent production. We have good suppliers, from whom we buy some ISA and primarily Lohmann chicks. Particularly the latter are doing well all the time because they don’t respond to changing conditions so easily.”
Quartey built two of his houses with tunnel ventilation and 3-tier Choretime cages around 20 years ago. “We expected our birds to perform better under controlled conditions. And indeed in those days this was true. But nowadays energy costs have gone up to such an extent that this doesn’t pay any more. We therefore doubt whether, when renovating, we will install tunnel ventilation again, or switch to natural ventilation. There’s a fair chance of the latter.” Apart from these tunnel ventilation houses, Quartey also has experience with five more houses on natural ventilation and this is satisfactory.
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Source: World Poultry, Vol. 28, No. 01, 2012
