Rabbits: Ghana�s Meat Of The Future

Have you ever tried rabbit meat? Rabbits are such adorable animals. Elsewhere, people take them for pets but the fluffy herbivore can make a highly lucrative venture that can lift many low income farmers out of poverty, while raising meat protein intake in the country.

In the outskirts of Accra, a middle-aged man is breaking the Ghanaian norm, building a new industry out of an animal that anybody barely thinks of � rabbits.

Here, Adotei Brown, who prefers to be referred to as Farmer Brown, a bubbly agriculturist of many parts, is teaching young farmers the business of rearing rabbits.

In 2002, he resigned from the Civil Service to start his rabbit farm with three females and a male.

Now, he grows 3,000 rabbits every year.

He now maintains an out growers breeding system, with 300 to 500 slaughtered every week for grocery stores, restaurants and hotels, including the La Palm Beach Hotel.

He grills rabbit meat at parties and social gatherings.

He has a special eatery for rabbit meat on his farm, whether grilled, smoked, cooked; just order and Farmer Brown has it. That�s what he does for a living.

He tells me rabbits can lift low income farmers out of poverty.

The female rabbit, called the doe, will have multiple births every year and those litters will reach breeding age within months. That means a rabbit can produce six pounds of meat on the same amount of feed and water it takes a cow to produce just one pound.

The average rabbit can produce at least 24 young ones in a year. One sells for GH�20, at least, and Farmer Brown says the meat is a hot cake.

Rabbits eat ordinary grass instead of expensive soy or fish meal, grow quickly and thrive in clean, disease-free conditions.

It is one of the best white meats available on the market today. Its protein is easily digestible and contains the least amount of fat.

Rabbit meat contains less calorie value than other meats, its cholesterol-free and, therefore, heart-friendly.

It has more meat relative to bones than many other animals.

Ghana�s failed National Rabbit Project

The rabbit industry is not new to Ghana. Forty years ago, Ghana begun a national rabbitery project to, among other things, help every Ghanaian produce their own meat and eat healthy protein as the deadly Kwashiorkor disease and malnutrition was on the rise, especially among children at the time.

This was part of the famous �Operation Feed Yourself� programme by General Kutu Acheampong�s government.

The project, like many other government initiatives, collapsed after Acheampong�s overthrow in 1978.

In 2012 alone, Ghana imported over US$120 million of meat products, according to the statistics at the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).

Although the importation of animal protein sources increases annually, there is still less meat per capita. High cost of importation means expensive retail prices. This is largely responsible for the poor protein intake in Ghana which currently hovers around 27 per cent, short of the FAO daily protein requirement of 48.8 per cent of food intake.

Livestock production is disjointed and relatively less commercialised in Ghana. The situation also leaves room for traditional hunting of animals in the wild for meat purposes, threatening the country�s forest reserve and putting the health safety of such meat products into question.

No government policy

The government does not yet have any clear policy on the development of relatively unknown livestock like rabbits.

But as deputy minister of Agric in charge of Livestock, Dr Hannah Bissiw, tells me, the ministry would look into the potential and plan an investment into its development.

But with the fiasco of Ghana�s national rabbitery project in the 1960s still fresh in mind, how do we start over again?

Although the Christmas festivities are over, probably not for everyone though, we don�t have to forget to try rabbits this 2014 as we strive to stay healthy and earn an extra income. You never know; you might just end up falling in love with it as I have. Happy New Year.

Source: Justice Baidoo / Daily Graphic