Ghana’s push to revive its struggling poultry sector is taking on a sharper investment dimension, with Daniel Fahene Acquaye, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Agri-Impact Group, making the case that the industry’s chronic import dependence can be reversed if the country treats the sector as a capital-attracting opportunity rather than a policy problem.
Speaking at a stakeholder dialogue in Accra, Acquaye argued that Ghana’s poultry value chain represents one of the most immediate platforms for import substitution and private sector-led growth, provided long-standing structural barriers are removed.
Ghana currently imports more than 90 percent of its poultry meat, a collapse driven by poor policy coordination, unregulated imports, escalating feed costs, and a breakdown in value chain linkages. The scale of the reversal is stark. The country produced about 60,000 tonnes of chicken meat in 2023, covering only 18 percent of total consumption estimated at 330,000 tonnes, with industry players citing high feed costs, limited availability of day-old chicks, and insufficient infrastructure as the core constraints.
For Acquaye, the gap is not merely agricultural but a significant economic leak. A product that can be produced domestically in under two months is instead being sourced from abroad, effectively exporting jobs, value, and industrial capacity along with the foreign exchange spent on imports.
A key pillar of the proposed master plan is repositioning poultry as a viable investment asset class. Acquaye argued that previous government interventions failed to attract adequate private capital because they lacked clear, bankable entry points. The master plan, he said, should enable investors to immediately identify specific opportunities across the entire value chain, from breeder farms and hatchery operations to feed mills, cold chain logistics, and processing facilities.
He also pointed to a persistent coordination failure in how the industry is financed. Funding production without corresponding capacity in processing, he noted, leads to underutilised assets and bottlenecks that ultimately discourage further investment. The master plan is expected to promote value chain financing models that align production, processing, and market access as an integrated system.
On competitiveness, Acquaye pointed out that many imported poultry products benefit from subsidies in their countries of origin, giving them an unfair price advantage. The Poultry Masterplan Stakeholders Dialogue, an initiative of the Harnessing Agricultural Productivity and Prosperity for Youth (HAPPY) Programme, is designed to produce a comprehensive, data-driven roadmap to validate baseline insights on the poultry value chain, identify key constraints affecting competitiveness, and define policy, infrastructure, and investment priorities.
The HAPPY Programme reported that between December 2023 and December 2025, a total of 4.6 million poultry birds were produced, generating $25.2 million in revenue and creating 8,000 youth jobs.
The master plan’s drafting process is scheduled for completion in 2026, following consultations and technical validation with industry stakeholders across the Northern, Middle Belt, and Southern regions.
Acquaye acknowledged that pilot results, while encouraging, fall well short of what is needed at scale. One processing facility with support from the Mastercard Foundation now handles over 200,000 birds per month, but national demand requires multiple large-scale processors working in parallel. Without significant capital inflows and coordinated expansion, Ghana will remain structurally dependent on imports.
He stressed that clear policy signals from government can be decisive. Investor confidence, he said, hinges on consistency and alignment between official priorities and the strategic plan. If executed well, the poultry sector could become a model for how Ghana uses coordinated policy and targeted investment to drive broader agro-industrial transformation.
