©Shutterstock Chicken farmer wearing personal protective clothing on a farm in Asia.
The Covid-19 pandemic significantly disrupted Ghanaian agriculture and forced players across the agriculture value chain to remodel day-to-day operations. With agriculture declared an essential industry, farmers continued to farm despite disruptions at every stage of the agri-supply-chain.
Health and safety concerns aside, there were several challenges on the ground. With the partial closure of local markets, farmers were unable to sell their produce in physical market places, and therefore, faced liquidity challenges.
Restrictions on movement and closure of state and national borders affected transportation of agri-produce from farms to markets and of essential seeds and crop protection products from factories to markets.
The closure of schools significantly affected some poultry farmers. Birds kept laying but the demand for eggs fell significantly. Schools particularly, Junior High and Senior High schools were closed down – and because they account for significant demand for eggs – farmers were adversely affected.
Selling broilers in the height of the pandemic was also difficult largely because people were cash strapped. As you already know by now, broilers are quite costly. This year’s Eid-ul-Adha was considered one of the worse from a business viewpoint by some farmers I spoke to – some reporting a drop in sales by about 50% compared to the previous year.
Lessons have been learned and these strategies will help you continue operations if anything like that occurs in the future.
E-commerce
During the pandemic, there were so many restrictions making it difficult for farmers to sell eggs and meat in the open market. For this reason, farmers need to find alternative ways to sell their birds. You can try advertising websites like Tonaton and Jiji to promote your products.
Creating a website
Create a professional website, eye-catchy logo, and optimize the site with store images, in-house videos, location, and social links to show the credibility of the business. Increase awareness and market reach through your social media pages. You can start posting images on Facebook and Instagram.
Home delivery of products
Start a home delivery through a website or an application to provide more customer satisfaction.
The concept of home delivery is important because many people want fresh eggs in the comfort of their home as they don’t want to go to the grocery store.
Join Farm Associations
It is a cost-effective way to sell your farm products. The membership fees are quite modest and benefits include newsletter subscription and web-based listing in the directory. Hence many people get to know about your business. You also get to learn more from other farmers this way.
Build A Listing Or Database
Most importantly, if you want to increase the sale of your poultry business, first build a listing or database of all customers that have ever contacted you. This is very important as it will give you a ready market that is only a phone call or email away.
Buying feed and vaccine in bulk
Buying feed and vaccines during the lockdown was tough, therefore, farmers need to consider buying these things in bulk such that when the unexpected occurs, they won’t struggle to look for feed for their birds and vaccines to protect them from illnesses. But a little word of caution – always check expiry dates of vaccines before purchasing them in bulk.
Pkom 