The National Agriculture Research Organisation is set to import new cattle breeds from Kenya.
Dr Halid Kirunda, the Director of Research at Mbarara Zonal Agriculture Research and Development Institute, said that they are developing a dairy breeding action plan for NARO that will be a guide to the breeding of cattle.
He said a committee of nine experts from NAGRIC, HEIFER international, and SNV and also consisting of Farmers, was constituted, and other members who are expert breeders, geneticians, and economists have been added to the committee.
Kirunda says that currently they are developing a composite breeding centre be the basis for developing new breeds. He added that they will crossbreed different animals like the East African short-horned zebu, Fresians, jerseys, Gansu, and the Ayrshire with the Uganda local breeds like the long-horned, and the Nganda cattle to get new breeds which are stabilised.
“With this breeding, we shall be having breeds suitable for the Karamoja area, this area and the Buganda area, and this is supposed to be the centre for that breeding mark.
Kirunda noted that the animals that are being brought in can produce between a minimum of 25-30 litres and others 45-50 litres daily. He said the cattle that are being brought are in-calf and will be three or seven months, and within seven months, the centre will have over 200 cattle.
He added that a team of cattle experts last year visited ten pedigree farms in Kenya, which have kept records of their cattle for many years, to identify the type of cattle and assist in knowing the type of cattle to buy and their fore cattle genes.
“We want to bring in four breeds of cattle in the country, the Fresians, Jerseys, Ganze, the Aisha and actually the construction of this infrastructure to hold the cattle is delaying the coming of the cattle, but expect the animals to arrive next week”.
Meanwhile, the National Agricultural Research Organisation has registered its Anti-Tick Vaccine and named it the NAROVAC.
Kirunda says the vaccine has finally gone through all stages of trials, starting with the approval of its concept, on-station clinical trial, and it exhibited 75% efficacy and the confined field trials that were conducted at MBAZARDI, Kiburara and Isimba, prison farms, MARUZI and MBWIZARDI in Karamoja and got an integrated efficacy and effectiveness of 97%.
He added that the safety of the vaccines was also assessed, and no negative effects were recorded.
He says they are planning a rollout of the vaccine, which will begin in areas with high tick prevalence, with the hope of starting in December after the President’s approval.
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