The Ranking Member on Parliament’s Food, Agriculture and Cocoa Affairs Committee, Isaac Yaw Opoku, has urged government to redesign its Nkoko Nkitinkiti initiative by concentrating resources on a smaller number of committed poultry farmers rather than distributing a handful of birds to thousands of beneficiaries.

Speaking on Asaase Breakfast Show on Friday (10 July), the Offinso South MP argued that the current model could not create sustainable commercial poultry businesses.

“It is impossible to become a poultry farmer with two birds,” he said.

Opoku said government should instead identify interested farmers in each constituency and provide them with adequate resources to establish viable poultry enterprises.

“You don’t need to satisfy every Ghanaian,” he said.

“Even if you train about 10 people in every constituency and resource them very well, I think it will serve the country better.”

He argued that successful farmers would encourage others to invest in poultry production, creating a more sustainable path toward increasing domestic chicken production.

“If they are successful, it will entice others. It will encourage others to go into poultry farming,” he said.

Opoku also dismissed calls for Parliament to investigate beneficiaries who reportedly slaughtered or consumed birds distributed under the programme.

According to him, such an investigation would amount to “a complete waste of everybody’s time” because the programme’s design made that outcome inevitable.

“If you give me only two birds and I raise them to maturity, what do you expect me to do?” he asked.

He also criticised the branding of the initiative, saying the name itself failed to inspire confidence among prospective poultry farmers.

“The name is not attractive at all,” he said.

The lawmaker further accused the government of making ambitious agricultural promises that had not been fulfilled, including commitments to establish agricultural service centres and cocoa processing factories across the country.

“It’s all about talking,” he said, adding that government should focus on implementing realistic and adequately funded agricultural interventions rather than broad programmes that fail to achieve their objectives.