Analyzing production challenges plaguing Ghana’s agricultural sector: A focus on poultry production in Greater Accra
Date
2017-04
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Abstract
Ghana has abundant viable land and a reasonably well educated population that can
support different types of agriculture including crop production and animal husbandry.
Unfortunately, in the last several years, the agricultural sector has been performing poorly
and poultry production has suffered from liberal trade policies that have exposed it to
competition from imported products, forcing an almost exclusive focus on egg instead of
meat production. At the birth of the country, the agricultural sector was the main contributor
to the nation’s economy with cocoa as the dominant foreign exchange earner. However, the
contribution of agriculture to GDP has reduced, falling behind the industrial and services
sector.
The objective of this paper was to identify and discuss the challenges affecting
agricultural production by focusing on the poultry sector. The challenges are then ranked in
order of severity using a reliability test known as the Kendall’s Coefficient of Concordance in
order to make recommendations to help mitigate the problems. The research employed a
mixed methodology (both quantitative and qualitative methods) and used primary data
gathered from the Greater Accra region, specifically six poultry farms to attain accurate and
reliable results. Current significant production challenges in Ghana’s poultry sector include:
high cost of feed; competition from imported birds; outbreak of diseases; pests; access to
finance and power supply. In terms of rank, the top problem is high cost of feed. To enhance
poultry production, the NPP government can subsidize feed and focus on building processing
plants in its one-district-one factory initiative to provide a market for locally produced birds.
Description
Thesis submitted to the Department of Business Administration, Ashesi University College, in partial fulfillment of Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration, April 2017
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Keywords
Ghana, agriculture sector, poultry production, competition, challenges