A GNA story published in yesterday's edition of ADM quoted Mr. Sanuel Kangah, General Secretary of the General Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU) of the TUC as saying that "currently about 80 percent of poultry establishments" in the country is folding up.

This, he explained, was due to competition with importers of chicken products that are relatively cheaper than the local ones.

It would be recalled that parliament recently abolished Act 641 passed in 2003 to protect the local poultry industry.

After the abrogation of Act 641, almost overnight, the local poultry industry started collapsing. It is now very difficult to get locally bred chicken, which many Ghanaians agree, is much, much tastier than the foreign imports.

Many people find the imported chicken too bland and too soft. Some even go to the extent of saying that the smell of the imported chicken is off-putting.

In an ADM survey (informal and verbal) over the past few weeks, it's come out clearly that Ghanaians are not happy that they cannot get their local chicken. Many chop bar owners, restaurateurs, housewives and ordinary people ADM has spoken to on their preferences say they prefer the locally bred chicken.

According to government sources, it was not the government's fault that the Act had to go, because "it was a mistake in the first place to have enacted Act 641." Explaining, the source said, though the government meant well with Act 641, it was clearly against WTO rules.

Furthermore, said another source, if Act 641 had not gone, it would have been very difficult to "trigger" the funds the government urgently requires from some of its major development partners.

The word "conditionality" is no longer kosher, and so countries have to put up appropriate performances that would help trigger the flow of funds they need from some of their development partners, hence the abolishing of Act 641.

Major farms that used to supply the discerning Ghanaian palette with products fairly close to the original efie akuko (free range chicken) are now folding up, and Ghanaians are being compelled to consume 'akuko folks', that is the pejorative name for imported chicken! By the way, "akuko folks" simply means second-hand chicken as in 'folks' or 'obroni wawu' - the popular terms for the second-hand clothes from Europe and America that now dominate Ghana's clothes market!

Should 'akuko folks' succeed in driving away the culinary culture of 'efie akuko', Ghana would have to face the painful likelihood of losing delicacies like aponkye nkrakra or even tuon zaafi...