Chicken is never missing in any home during this time of the year. Chicken stew and rice, fufu and chicken soup are the favourite meals in majority of homes during Christmas.
Unfortunately, the narratives associated with Christmas this year will be without the sumptuous chicken stew and soup for children who look up to this feast, especially in the villages where parents will not deny their children a meal with chicken.
In those areas rice and chicken meals are served only on festive occasion such as Christmas and Easter or during Eid celebrations by Muslims.
The reason for the possible absence of meals served with chicken this year could be that first the issue of bird flu which rocked the country some months ago and led to the destruction of thousands of birds in the Greater Accra, Volta, Eastern and Ashanti regions has affected the population of birds on various farms for sale at this Christmas.
Secondly, retailers of birds are anticipating a price hike this season and are therefore, not stocking the market with the few birds left with a view to cashing in when market activities peak next year.
Thus, the birds have virtually disappeared from the market.
Fears
Sellers of birds, during Daily Graphic’s visit to parts of Accra bemoaned the slow pace of sales this season.
They attributed the low patronage to bird flu scare and the possibility of increases in the prices of live birds, as well as the general slow pace of the economy.
During a visit to Kantamanto in Accra yesterday, many hencoops were found to be empty in anticipation of a possible increase in the price of the birds during the season.
According to a dealer, Mr Kwasi Zorkor, last year by this time he was able to sell 500 birds a week, but the situation was different as he could barely sell 150 birds in a week this time around.
Another dealer, Alhassan Zakariah, also said business was slow and pleaded that the prices of the birds should not be increased as this would collapse their business.
Other dealers in Kantamanto in Accra who the Daily Graphic also spoke to accused cold store operators of fuelling rumours of bird flu in order to protect their interests this season.
In view of the bird flu scare and the likelihood of its impact on the industry, the Executive Secretary of the Greater Accra Poultry Farmers Association, Mrs Victoria Norgbey, said currently, the association was focusing on education of the farmers.
Also, she said the poultry farmers were working on improving sanitation in farms, as well as ensuring that they reported any dead bird to the Veterinary Services Department of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA).
She said the association was also focusing on the spraying of farms with disinfectants which had been subsidised for the farmers.
Chicken and Christmas
Ms Efua Rockson, a beautician at Odorkor in Accra, in an interview, said, “I have not heard any announcement that we should not eat chicken this Christmas. Telling us not to eat chicken will be like saying that we should postpone the festivities, which is not possible,” she said.
Ms Tsotsoo Kwei, a resident of Anyaa, said she was worried because her aging mother was still insisting that Christmas without the slaughtering of a live chicken was no Christmas.
The President of the Ghana National Poultry Farmers Association (GNPFA), Mr Victor Oppong Adjei, in an interview, however maintained that it was safe to consume local poultry.
According to him, the outbreak had been contained and, therefore, local poultry was safer to consume than the imported ones.
He said the GNPFA was ready to meet 40 per cent of the demand of birds during Christmas.
Mr Adjei said farmers in the country had been educated and, therefore, they were only producing healthy birds for the occasion.
He said although the prices of poultry feed, especially maize, had increased this year by over 100 per cent, the association was not going to increase prices of the birds.
He said medium and big birds were going for GH₵20 and GH₵25 respectively.
Background
Avian influenza (AI), commonly called bird flu, is an infectious viral disease that affects birds.
Most avian influenza viruses do not infect humans. However, some, such as A(H5N1) and A(H7N9), have caused serious infections in people. The majority of human cases of A (H5N1) and A (H7N9) infection have been associated with direct or indirect contact with infected live or dead poultry.
The outbreak started in Nigeria in 2014 and gradually spread to Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire and then Ghana in May 2015.
To date, more than 44,144 birds belonging to 25 farmers in especially the Greater Accra, Volta and Ashanti regions have been destroyed and GH¢1,067,355 in compensations paid to the farmers. Also, more than 1,103 crates of eggs and 37 bags of feed and structures were destroyed as part of measures to contain the disease.
Recently, officials of the Epidemiology Department of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) destroyed an additional 18,000 birds at a farm at Kpone, near Tema, on suspicion of an H1N1 Avian influenza infection.
Compensation package
The compensation package was part of the government’s effort to encourage farmers to report any early detection of bird flu outbreak on their farms.
The package was made possible after Parliament approved GH¢11,035,610 million from the Contingency Fund to support MoFA’s emergency plan to combat the disease.
Measures
As part of measures to halt the further spread of the virus, the government placed a ban on the importation of poultry from within and outside the West African sub-region and also prohibited the hawking of poultry in the Greater Accra Region.
The ban was placed within a few days to the celebration of Eid-ul-Fitr in July this year by the Veterinary Services Department.
The Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture in charge of Livestock, Dr Hannah Bissiw, is on record to have said that the ban was among other tough measures being adopted to contain the bird flu.
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