Park Agrotech Ghana Limited, a subsidiary of the Skylark Group of India, has launched an improved brand of poultry feed for local poultry farmers.

Dubbed: Lay More Poultry Feed, the product comes in five grades, with age- specifications to meet the nutritional need of birds at all stages of poultry production.

Using modern technology and scientific approaches, the initiative gives local farmers cost-effective access to quality feed, a requirement for a robust poultry industry.

The feed mill, which is located at Apedwa in the Eastern Region, is part of a $8-billion investment the company put into poultry production, including a breeder farm, a mechanised maize farm and a hatchery.

Launch

At the launch of the product in Accra yesterday, the Managing Director of the company, Mr Latit Mishra, said the feed mill had the capacity to produce 500,000 tonnes of feed a year.

Present at the event were the Okyenhene, Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin, the Indian High Commissioner in Ghana, Mr Birender Singh Yadav, and a renowned actor, Mr John Dumelo.

Mr Mishra explained that the Lay More poultry feed had been produced under a robust bio-security, hygienic and automated operational system, adding that quality assurance mechanisms were strictly adhered to in producing the feed.

According to him, the feed was produced with sophisticated technology that left little space for human interference and contamination of the final product.

He said the poultry feed would not only help reduce the importation of poultry inputs but also contribute immensely to job creation.

Visit

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo had visited the feed mill as part of his tour of the Eastern Region in December last year.

The visit was meant to ascertain the quality of work by the company.

Drawing inspiration from that visit, Osagyefuo Ofori Panin said the visit by the President was an indication that the private sector had a critical role to play to boost the poultry sub-sector.

He lauded the managers of Park Agrotech for the investment in the local economy and urged them to make their operations beneficial to the host communities and the country at large.

Support

The Okyenhene underscored the need for attitudinal change towards farming, stressing that the time had come for the government to support farmers to expand their production.

"There is a viable market for poultry in this country and so the right support ought to be given to farmers to take advantage of it.

"The President should find a way to make credit available to small holder farmers and also strengthen partnerships with the private sector to boost the poultry sector," he said.

Osagyefuo Ofori Panin also stressed the need for the government to take radical measures to decentralise some ministries, departments and agencies (MDAS) to take development to all parts of the country.

"Ministries such as Food and Agriculture, Local Government and Rural Development, Lands and Natural Resources, as well as the Forestry Commission, should be decentralised. But it takes courage to do that," he said.

Ghana-India relationship

For his part, Mr Yadav lauded the managers of the company for the initiative, saying that the investment in the poultry sector would enhance the relationship between Ghana and India.

"The government has an agricultural policy called Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) and so I see this investment in poultry feed as a major step by a private sector organisation to support that job creation agenda because many people will be employed in the value chain," he said.