More than 700 households in the Akyem Owuram zone of the West Akyem Municipality have received chicks under the government’s Nkoko Nkitinkiti Household and Backyard Poultry Production Initiative, as the programme’s rollout continues to reach communities across the Eastern Region.
West Akyem Municipal Chief Executive Paulina Akabilla supervised the distribution exercise, telling residents that every step of the process was being managed with transparency to ensure all eligible beneficiaries received their allocation without interference.
Akabilla said the initiative was designed to provide families with a sustainable economic activity through small-scale poultry farming. She appealed to beneficiaries to set aside partisan considerations and focus on the practical opportunity the programme presents for boosting household incomes and local food production.
Residents in the zone welcomed the intervention, with many pledging to manage the birds responsibly. Beneficiaries attributed the support to President John Dramani Mahama and the West Akyem Municipal Assembly.
The Nkoko Nkitinkiti programme was formally launched by President Mahama in Kumasi in November 2025 as a flagship component of the broader Feed Ghana Programme. The initiative carries an ambitious target of raising Ghana’s poultry self-sufficiency from around 12 percent to more than 75 percent by 2028. It is designed to bring poultry production directly to the doorsteps of Ghanaians, in homes, schools and communities, with beneficiaries receiving birds, feed, and other supplies to start their operations.
The government has already distributed 720,000 birds under the programme to 13,000 farmers across 12 districts, with officials describing the pilot phase as successful and signalling an immediate nationwide rollout.
Ghana’s annual chicken import bill is estimated at around 400 million dollars, a dependence the Nkoko Nkitinkiti programme directly targets by building domestic production capacity at the household level.
