The National Chairman of Ghana National Association of Poultry Farmers has bemoaned the number of poultry farmers in the country.

Speaking in an interview on JoyNews’ Newsfile on Saturday, Mr Victor Oppong Adjei said that about "80 per cent of poultry farmers in Ghana are not in operation."

This, he explained is due to the cheap prices of imported chicken.

He added that the local poultry farmers are not producing one per cent of the imported metric tonnes of poultry.

“In 2021, about 297,903 metric tonnes of chicken were imported from European Union (EU) alone. Now America and Brazil are also contesting at the top that they are the highest exporter of chicken into the country so considering this fact if the EU which is the third brought 297,903 metric tonnes and assuming the three countries brought the same figure, it gives you 683, 709 metric tonnes and we are not producing one per cent of that figure,” he noted.

Mr Oppong Adjei also stated that per European Union’s statistics, Ghana is the leading importer of chicken.

According to him, the imported chicken is cheap to the extent that the local market does not stand a chance to compete.

As a result, he said the importation has compelled Ghanaians, poultry farmers, to go into egg production.

Meanwhile, he stated that chicken is not as cheap as sold in Ghana in the Western world.