“The Ministry of Food and Agriculture inaugurated a committee made up of stakeholders in the industry to ensure that poultry farmers in the country meet a 40 per cent demand in the market and we are ready to meet that target in spite of the challenges the sector is facing,” the Chairman of the GNPFA, Mr Victor Opong Adjei, told the Graphic Business in Accra.

The committee’s responsibility among others is to ensure that importers stick to 60 per cent importation of chicken products coming into the country in order to avoid shortage of meat.

He debunked media reports that there was inadequate education on the avian influenza (bird flu) and therefore a potential epidemic might break out.

“We are entirely surprised about the report because sensitisation about the disease started several months before the country even recorded its first case,” he added.

He, therefore, appealed to the media to be very circumspect in their reportage as any negative comment could trigger the collapse of the ailing sector.

Responding to the restriction on the movement of birds in the country, he said that the directive applied only to the Greater Accra Region, adding that the last case recorded was at Obuasi three months ago.

Mr Adjei said the Association would meet the Ministry of Food and Agriculture in the third week of August to negotiate on the compensation packages for the farmers whose birds were killed as a result of the outbreak.

Figures from the Parliamentary Select Committee on Food, Agriculture and Cocoa Affairs in July indicated that the disease had then affected 11 poultry farms in the Greater Accra, Volta and Ashanti regions.

So far, the nation has lost 800,000 Ghanaian cedi due to the destruction of 33,143 birds, 1,058 crates of eggs and 37 bags of feed in the three affected regions.