Ghana’s high meat imports highlight domestic production potential
In his inaugural lecture, ‘The meat industry: a potential pivot for national development’, Professor Gabriel Ayum Teye of the University for Development Studies said 90% of meat products consumed in the country were imported from Burkina Faso and Europe. If there was investment in the domestic meat industry, the country could save money and produce more meat, which would help tackle child malnutrition, he claimed.
He said the agricultural sector contributed 23.7% to the GDP in 2014 in both skilled and unskilled labour, while the livestock subsector contributed only 1.3%.
“We must begin to produce meat in Ghana now,” he told the audience of students and academics.
Teye said the country spent unnecessarily millions on importing meat that could be produced within the country. A total of 12,000 goats were imported into the country from Burkina Faso in 2013, he said, despite the fact northern areas of Ghana had a similar climate and could be used to farm livestock. “There is, therefore, the need for urgent steps to be taken to reverse this trend, since Ghana holds a great potential in the livestock and meat industries.”
Teye also called for the revamping of Ghana’s defunct meat processing factories. Citing the case of the Bolgatanga meat plant, he said many meat processing plants collapsed in the 1970s, due to the economic decline that led to lower demand for meat throughout the country.
He also expressed concern about the poor handling of meat by some butchers and called for the enforcement of rules governing meat production and handling, to improve meat quality and eliminate some unhygienic practices associated with the slaughtering and transportation of meat.
