SCIENTISTS MOVE IN TO IMPROVE LIVESTOCK THROUGH ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION

Aubrey Mgala, an extension worker in Lilongwe rural is at a loss; he does not understand why chicken and goats that are crossed with other breeds get lost after sometime.

“The introduction of exotic breeds, coupled with lack of proper cross-breeding policies and strategies in both chicken and goats that has made the indigenous genetic erode .For example the Black Australorp in chicken and a pure local Malawi goats with a flock of boer goats were used for cross-breeding but they are no longer there after sometime” said Mgala much to his disappointment.

And this is the case in many areas. For example, if one goes back in beneficiary villages of crossbreeding after a year or two, those Black Australorp or Boers are no longer found. This brings about three untested hypotheses for the loss of these breeds; either they fail to infiltrate or the crosses die or indeed when they go in the village they fail to adapt.

But scientists at the Lilongwe University and Natural Resources (Luanar) and Chitedze Research Station in Lilongwe have observed that the cross-breeding lacks control and this underlined their interest to provide a solution by introducing a biotechnology of artificial insemination.

“Through our evaluation we saw some bottlenecks with the government program of distributing Black Australorp in the village and this was through our planned studies under some small projects where we have engaged the community through what we call ‘community based breeding programs’ and we have observed that there is need for improving chickens through insemination than crossbreeding”. Said Timoth Gondwe a Professor of Animal Breeding at Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Buoyed by the support from the Science Granting Council Initiative (SGCI), the animal science scientists are carrying out insemination for goats and chicken.

Gondwe further said. “The exigency to conserve improved goats led to the 1993 government project in attempt to ensure the continual of improved goat production through crossbreeding at Salima. However, since the program ended, crossing has been unregulated. Some goats look like Boer by color yet they are local by size. The country may have by now, developed a composite breed in these areas where crossing has been taking place this has been the reason that scientist in the field thought to bring a solution”. 

The innovative technology test in artificial insemination in both goats and chicken is underway at three sites of Bunda and among farmers in Mpingu and Mpenu EPA in Lilongwe taking advantage of livestock and government project called SAPP with which they have integrated.

The project is an outreach activity involving international scientists from Lupane a State University in Zimbabwe under the overarching theme of “Artificial Insemination in Goats and Chickens”.

Another Agriculture extension officer from Kavukuku EPA at Nthalire in Chitipa, Philimone Dube said if successful the project will give maximum benefit to conserve local breeds .He says lack of planned breeding programs and management systems in his EPA are resulting in either inbreeding of indigenous stock and use of inferior males and sometimes just a complete loss of genetics.

But LUANAR researchers are confident that their insemination solution is one very reliable.

“Recently the Community breeding in goat has proven to work in areas where we have done, with about 10 to 15 percent and we hope that this project is a good alternative to the crossbreeding that has  underlying problems such as maintenance of rotational crossbreeding and sometimes it can be complicated requiring careful attention to control.” researchers say.

The ambitious project thrives to make comparison in both goats and chickens in terms of outcome of births and birth rate to those goats and chickens that are naturally mate using males. According to the researchers, the comparison will be focused to measure growth, reproduction and cost effectiveness. 

SGCI in Malawi, works through the National Council for Science and Technology NCST.  Towards this project, researchers received a $30, 000.

The scientists confess the grants are necessary for Malawi to support more research and provide solutions on emerging issues that are national and global c such as adverse  effects of climate change, soil degradation and high cost of farm inputs such as fertiliser where animal production may become an alternative.

“Our primary goal is to change from crop-livestock integrated system to livestock-crop integrated system and we are mindful of climate change especially that crops are failing to perform .Those farmers with livestock are more resilient to shocks including climate change compared to farmers that just grow crops” Gondwe argued.