Cattle ranch struggles against meat imports

Aveyime Cattle Ranch has only 200 of the 2,000 cattle which used to graze on its 10,000 acres meanwhile cold stores across the country are full of imported meat.

However, former Deputy Minister for Information and now the MP for the North Tongu Electoral Constituency of the Volta Region, has promised to help the government-owned ranch by starting to clear the aquatic weeds that have overtaken about 70% of the hand-dug well that serves it.

He also promised to engage the Ministry for Food and Agriculture[MOFA] to see how best the ranch, that was once the top beef meet supplier to the whole nation, can be assisted to work effectively.

Mr. Charles Kofi Okyere Darko, the ranch manager, thanked the MP for recognising the efforts being made by management to bring the ranch back to its former successful state.

He told the MP of all the challenges confronting, one of them being the absence of the workers on the Accountant General Department’s payroll. He described it as their greatest challenge saying that in the whole of 2012, the workers were only paid in December.

As well as poor treatment of workers, he said problems with water and electricity made their work very difficult. He therefore called on the MP to do his best to ensure such amenities are provided to them although he hinted that the newly appointed District Chief Executive [DCE] of the area has promised to help in that direction.

Mr. Okyere Darko, amongst other things indicated that the Ranch’s 16-year old tractor needs to be replaced with a new one to make their work very effective. "We also needs to go mobile as a ranch and as such we need a new or strong pick-up help us do our work well," he said.

The Ranch was established in 1973 as a joint venture between the Ghanaian and the Italian governments under the auspices of the then Volta Regional Development Council with the objective of producing beef cattle for the nation.

The Italians, after the project took off successfully, pulled out of the agreement after 10 years and handed the ranch over to the European Union [EU] between 1983 and 1993.

Mr Okyere Darko pointed out that between these periods the ranch had around 2,000 cattle before the EU pulled out of the contract and handed over to a Ghanaian entity in 1993 which saw the company fail as it struggled to pay its workers.

Government in 2006 came to the rescue and took over the ranch under the Animal Production Department of the Ministry for Food and Agriculture [MOFA], adding that a lot of strides have been made since he and his team took over in 2012.

The Aveyime Cattle Ranch currently has 10,000 hectares of land but there is a lot of litigation going on currently as government did not pay any compensation to land owners upon acquisition of the land in 1973.

The Ranch Manager disclosed that the Ranch which currently has only 215 animals needs to fence its area perimeters to limit encroachment.