The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Hon. Eric Opoku has commissioned the ultra-modern Beacon’s cold storage expansion project at Tema in the Greater Accra Region.
The project not merely physical structure is a strategic investment in Ghana’s food security architecture and concrete expressions of confidence in the future of Ghana’s poultry industry.
According to the Minister, the project aligns directly with Government’s flagship Feed Ghana Programme, a comprehensive framework for transforming Ghana’s agriculture and food systems.
Under this Programme he said livestock development occupies a central place, with poultry identified as the most immediate and high-impact opportunity for import substitution, job creation, and agro-industrial growth.
“For many years, Ghana has depended heavily on imported poultry products, with an annual import bill estimated between US$300 million and US$400 million. This situation is neither economically sustainable nor consistent with our national development aspirations. The time has come to rebuild domestic capacity across the entire poultry value chain — from hatchery to feed production, from farm to processing, and from cold storage to market,” he said.
To rebuild the domestic capacity across the entire poultry value chain, he explained the government launched the Poultry Industry Revitalization sub-programme under the Feed Ghana Programme and this intervention addresses the structural bottlenecks that have impelled the sector. Thus, high feed costs, weak value-chain coordination, limited access to quality day-old chicks, inadequate veterinary support, and critically, insufficient processing and cold chain infrastructure.
He mentioned that there are three model for revitalizing the sector; a Poultry-Farm-to-Table model that supports large-scale commercial farms, small and medium-scale poultry producers to improve productivity and competitiveness and lastly Nkoko Nketenkete Backyard Poultry
Programme, to expand household and community-level production, with particular emphasis on women, youth, and vulnerable households.
He expressed that increase production without processing and cold chain capacity is vague, therefore, Beacon’s cold storage expansion project is timely to enhance Ghana’s capacity to preserve quality, reduce post-harvest losses, stabilise supply, and ensure food safety standards.
He commended Beacon Source and Services Ltd. and Bostex Trading GmbH for the vision, commitment, and strategic alignment with the Feed Ghana Programme to advancing a national agenda that seeks for food security, job creation, industrial growth, and economic resilience.
