Maevva along with the Ministry of Agriculture’s Rural Economic Agriculture Transformation Project (RETRAP) and other stakeholders from diverse backgrounds, including commercial poultry farmers, processors and other value chain members, researchers and academia, recently concluded a one day meeting to discuss the challenges and opportunities that exist for commercial poultry farming in Liberia. 

The Public Private Dialogue on the Challenges and Opportunities of the Commercial Poultry Sector event was held on May 16, 2014, in Careysburg, rural Montserrado County.

The meeting primarily aimed to enhance the productivity of the poultry value chains in terms of discussing market access and production for the local producers and agribusiness enterprises as well as to promote networking and productive alliance approaches. 

Due to the high level of poultry products importation by Liberia, stakeholders seek to work harder to  further develop the poultry industry to reduce the nation’s reliance, or to achieve self-sufficiency. 

According to reports, Liberia spends approximately US$45 million annually to import poultry products in order to satisfy the demand of the local market.

The high level of poultry products importation makes the nation lose hard currency and also leaves many of the citizens, mainly youth and women, without job opportunities, according to experts.

Currently, commercial poultry production in Liberia faces a lot of challenges including, limited access to feed and drugs, limited veterinarian services as well as the lack of an effective hatchery to ensure the availability of day-old chicks. 

However, considering the need to revitalize the poultry industry in order to attract investment and to create employment, Liberia has drafted the Poultry Development Strategy. 

The meeting was organized by the Rural Economic Agriculture Transformation Project (RETRAP), a World Bank funded project at the Ministry, which aims to support key value chains to improve food security within Liberia and to improve the incomes of smallholder farmers and agripreneurs.

Speaking at the event, the Project Manager of RETRAP, Tarnue Jeke said that recommendations from the meeting will be advanced for possible inclusion into the new National Agriculture Development Plan for the country.

According to him, access to feed is one of the main challenges that is confronting the industry and there is a need to find an amicable solution.

He said production cost is seriously affecting the profit margin for producers, and it is something that consultation seeks to look at.

“How to reduce production cost is one of the main issues we need to focus on,” he said.

Tarnue said that the Ministry is working to provide inputs to the farmers to make the prices of poultry products affordable for the local market.

However, he said some of the challenges facing the sector will require policy implementation to address them.

According to him, over the years, several members of the poultry value chains have received grants to build their capacities to supply the market.

For her part, the Livestock Development Specialist of RETRAP, Dr. Etagegnewu D. Belayneh, said that the Ministry of Agriculture through its project had impacted the lives of many poultry farmers.

She said based on the intervention, poultry farmers are now supplying the market with eggs and meat.

“With the intervention, eggs are now being supplied to the supermarkets and restaurants and hotels. We have also built the capacity of processors to supply the market,” she said.

However, she mentioned the need to address the communication gap between the value chain actors to overcome some of the constraints. 

Making remarks, Former Bong County Senator Henry W. Yallah lauded the Ministry of Agriculture’s RETRAP project for the workshop and called on the government to invest more.

The former senator, who is also a poultry farmer, said that the workshop was important to identify the challenges that poultry farmers are facing.

He mentioned that though the government is attracting resources to the poultry sector, more needs to be done.