African Poultry Wrap: Producers Face High Production Costs, Disease Pressure
AFRICA - The cost of poultry meat production in African countries such as Sudan is rising, mainly due to the growing cost of importing raw materials, and producers are also facing disease challenges, as Burkina Faso has reported four new cases of bird flu.
22 May 2015
3 minute read
By: The past 30 day period has seen mixed fortunes for the poultry sector in Africa, with experts calling for research and adoption of new efficiency guidelines, aimed at lowering the cost of producing poultry meat in the region.
Stanley Miller, the international commercial manager for Arbor Acres in Sudan, says producers of poultry meat in Sudan and other African countries have to find more efficient ways of growing the industry, whilst also increasing profits.
“Farming modern birds with higher growth rates and lower feed conversion ratios (FCR) is the way forward to building a profitable industry,” he said.
The company already has professional partners across the country helping to provide support to growers facing technical challenges.
“Like the rest of Africa, the cost of the poultry meat production in Sudan is rising, mostly due to the local imports of raw materials and energy cost. The Sudanese industry is not an exception to this trend,” he said in early May.
The technical challenges that producers in Africa are facing include outbreaks of disease.
Burkina Faso recorded a new case of bird flu, following another outbreak in March.
The West African nation said the first case had been recorded and declared at a poultry farm in Tangora, about 400 kilometres west of the capital Ouagadougou, during the first week of May.
An unknown but significant number of cockerels at the farm have died.
Figures released a month ago by the country’s Animal Resources ministry show that more than 202,000 chickens have died from the disease outbreak since the end of March.
This has prompted authorities in Ghana and Hong Kong to ban poultry imports from Burkina Faso.
Hong Kong’s Centre for Food Safety (CFS) said it had contacted the West African country about this problem, but that no eggs or other poultry products had been imported from the affected country last year.
In Ghana, a statement from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture declared: "We do not intend to create panic in the country, but we wish to remind the general public of the total ban on importation of poultry and poultry products from Burkina Faso.”
