(ASADTEK Industries donates to Animal Research Institute)

ASADTEK Industries Limited has donated 200 aluminium roofing sheets to the Animal Research Institute (ARI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
Making the donation, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ASADTEK, Mr Asare Adjei, said since the government alone could not support scientific research adequately, it was important that industries complimented its efforts in funding research to propel Ghana forward.
He said the donation, therefore, demonstrated the type of linkage that should exist between industries and scientific institutions particularly in capacity building so that the scientific institutions could fulfil the mandates for which they were set up.
Receiving the items on behalf of the CSIR, the Director of ARI, Dr N. Karbo, said commercial poultry production had become a highly skilled-intensive enterprise with profit margins reducing daily as a result of the competitively priced products from foreign sources.
He said to sustain the sector in the face of global competition, a strong research support base, which ensured continuous improvement of products and reduction in production cost was required.
Dr Karbo said that poultry housing was a major contributory factor to efficient and cost effective production of poultry products.
He explained that chickens were warm blooded birds, who had the ability to maintain a rather uniform temperature of their internal organs.
He explained, however, that the ability of the birds could be disabled when the ambient temperature exceeded certain extremes and that it was very important that chickens were housed and cared for properly in order to provide them with an environment in which their thermal balance could be maintained.
He said roofing materials for poultry houses should be able to absorb heat from the poultry house and from the litter without the litter itself becoming hot.
Dr Karbo said aluminium roofing sheets were satisfactory materials for roofing poultry houses because compared with iron-containing materials, it was more durable.
He said the gesture afforded the institute the opportunity to confirm preliminary findings for the benefit of the poultry industry.
He expressed his profound gratitude to ASADTEK for the gesture in supporting research and added that ARI was opened to public and private partnership in the local industry for research and development advancement to enhance socio-economic growth of the country.

* The Chief Executive Officer of ASADTEK, Mr Asare Adjei seventh person on the left in ash suit and the Director ARI, Dr N. Karbo seventh on the left beside him is the Commercial Director of CSIR, Mrs Josephine Okutu in green cloth.