The World Poultry Foundation (WPF) completed a teaching program in Ghana designed to help those teaching Ghanaians about animal husbandry know the subject matter better.
On October 20, the Stone Mountain, Georgia, based non-profit organization announced the closure of “train the trainer” program designed to foster long-term development of the country’s industry. The effort, funded by the WPF along with the Ghanaian Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Ghana National Association of Poultry Farmers, taught local poultry farmers how to raise chickens more efficiently. Biosecurity to prevent the spread of disease was emphasized.
“As we expand this effort in Ghana, we expect thousands of producers all across Ghana to benefit,” WPF CEO Randall Ennis said in a press release. “We began the program in Accra and Kumasi, the country’s two most important poultry-producing areas.”
Starting in 2015, professors from the University of Georgia’s Poultry Science Department went to Ghana to work with government officials to set up and conduct the training sessions. The UGA team gauged the effectiveness of the previous year’s train-the-trainer” sessions by testing how well Ghanaian farmers were able to train other chicken growers in their regions.
The more than 30 farmers who trained with the UGA team will be able to train an additional 480 producers in seven regions of the country, the non-profit said in the release.
“The brooding basics I received from the training have improved my brooding practices, and that has greatly reduced mortality in the last broilers I raised,” Patricia Ashanti, a poultry grower from near the capital city of Accra, said in a release.
Ghana is a part of a rapidly growing and urbanizing part of Sub-Saharan Africa, but its poultry industry is challenged by lingering issues with avian influenza.
The WPF is an organization dedicated to fostering the development of emerging nation’s poultry production through education and technical training. It recently highlighted its work in biosecurity training in Vietnam.
