The United States Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service awarded a $1,993,000 grant to the Kansas State Grain Science faculty in partnership with the World Initiative in Soybean for Human Health, other universities and local entities to help re-develop the poultry industry in Ghana through the USDA’s Food for Progress Program.
The application of the grant will help improve the feed manufacturing industry and help local farmers improve their post-harvest techniques to supply grain for the feed and poultry industry in Ghana. Charles Stark, associate professor in feed technology at Kansas State University; Cassandra Jones, assistant professor in feed technology at KSU; and Carlos Campabadal, outreach specialist in feed manufacturing and grain quality management at the IGP Institute will be the main KSU faculty working on this part of the project.
“This is a four-year project with one of its goals aimed at helping expand post-harvest activities of farmers to supply feed for the poultry industry in Ghana,” says Campabadal. “We are hoping in the long run that the U.S. exports soybeans as one of the main protein feed ingredient sources for poultry feed.”
The Food for Progress Program helps developing countries modernize and strengthen their agricultural sectors. With the help of the American Soybean Association/WISHH, this program focuses on educating producers about the importance of using their own grain more efficiently, as well as providing U.S. soybeans in the future for poultry feed production.
“We are aiming to teach those in Ghana how to produce better feed for poultry industry use, how to use grain more efficiently and how to store grain better,” Campabadal says.
WISHH is a national program that with the help of other organizations has enhanced different nations’ protein intake through market development, education and research. This project will help Ghanaian farmers improve the quality of their poultry products, increasing farm income and improving operational efficiencies.
