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With an unwavering commitment and passion for farming, Seth Akoto Ofei, an electrical engineer, has succeeded in manufacturing incubators used to hatch eggs to feed his poultry farm.
In an interview during a tour of his farm on Tuesday, 18th February, 2025, Akoto Ofei recounted that he had developed a passion for farming a long time ago. “I normally have to leave Cape Coast very late, about 9pm, to get to the airport in Accra by about 1am to pick up my day-old chicks and return”, he stated. This had been his usual routine, either when he needed day-old chicks to restock his farm.
Manufacturing an Incubator.
The idea to develop an incubator started with an admonition from my father. “You are an electrical engineer, so why risk going to Accra just to pick up day-old chicks? Why can’t you leverage your knowledge to manufacture your own incubator”, he recounted.
The idea initially wasn’t tempting enough to compel him to embark on such an adventure. He adds that, with the consistency of the administration from his father, he had to try manufacturing his incubator. “In my first and second attempts, out of 30 eggs, none of them hatched. In my third attempt, out of 30 eggs, I had only 3 eggs hatch. That was very frustrating, but I never lost hope”, he recounted.
With his quest to succeed and to improve upon the hatch rate, he revealed that he had to travel to his village to study how a hen naturally incubates its eggs.
“It was there that I realised that, at some point while incubating the eggs, they used their mouth to rotate the eggs and then sat on them again”, he revealed.
Armed with this knowledge, he returned to his incubator and introduced a system that automatically rotates the eggs.
“I placed 100 eggs in the incubator and had a 50% hatch rate. This spurred me on to achieve what I have been able to achieve today”, he shared, adding “What I’ve just recounted took no less than a year to achieve”, he stressed.
Today, he has developed two incubators that can hatch 1056 and 500 eggs. Thus, he can produce 1556 eggs of any bird type, including layers and broilers.
One outstanding feature of the locally produced birds, according to the electrical engineer, is that their mortality rate is better and they are able to withstand diseases compared to the imported breeds.
“If you compare their mortality rate and their resistance to the imported chicks, what I breed are far better and well acclimatized to our weather”, he emphasised.
Developing ‘Ɔkunkɔm nam’ fowl bread
After achieving success with breeding and incubating both layers and broilers over the years, he highlighted that the next challenge was to develop a fowl breed peculiar to his farm, thus breeding a local fowl that could not be found anywhere except on his farm.
With his steadfast commitment to achieve this, he had to travel to several villages and towns around the Cape Coast Metropolis to gather the best breeds of fowl to develop his own ‘Ɔkunkɔm nam’ fowl. This fowl has been in existence since 2019 – they look look very beautiful, bigger, and heavier than the normal fowls seen around.
Mr. Akoto Ofei revealed that the name ‘Ɔkunkɔm nam’ suggests a fowl that has a lot of meat, intended to extinguish hunger in our motherland. “The meat of the ‘Ɔkunkɔm nam’ fowl is tender and tastes better than the normal poultry fowl meat”, he avered.
Way Forward
Investments in the poultry industry have the tendency to create employment opportunities for farmers, processors, distributors, and other related industries.
This formed part of President John Mahama’s dream and vision during his campaign tour. President Mahama had pledged to provide incentives, such as day-old chicks and ovens, to support poultry and baking startups.
Again, he pledged to revamp the collapsing poultry industry by incentivizing farmers and promoting local consumption under the ‘Made-in-Ghana’ agenda and to roll out a ‘Poultry Farm to Table’ project to boost poultry production in collaboration with Poultry Farmers Associations.
Prez Mahama’s vision dovetails into Akoto Ofei’s passion and vision for the poultry industry. He appeals to Prez Mahama to leverage his expertise to produce day-old chicks to help the youth interested in poultry farming. “With investments, I can manufacture bigger incubators to produce larger quantities of day-old chicks to support youth empowerment. This would help the government cut down costs by not importing foreign day-old chicks with high mortality rates”, he stressed.
Conclusion
Mr. Akoto Ofei encouraged the youth never to despair, irrespective of the challenges that confront their dreams. He urged the government to support him in helping to boost poultry in the country, thereby improving the national nutritional content.
“With little investment, I can produce the required day-old chicks to support the NDC government agenda for the poultry industry, aiding in youth employment”, he stated.
