‘Artificial insemination can improve milk production, mitigate farmer/herder crisis’

The Manager, Operations and Chief Technical Officer of Livestock Genetics Africa, Mr. Jonathan Jatau, has said that encouraging local livestock farmers to adopt artificial insemination will not only improve milk production and quality beef, but it will also mitigate the persistent farmer/herder clashes in Nigeria. Jatau stated this during the training of 30 artificial insemination […]

The Manager, Operations and Chief Technical Officer of Livestock Genetics Africa, Mr. Jonathan Jatau, has said that encouraging local livestock farmers to adopt artificial insemination will not only improve milk production and quality beef, but it will also mitigate the persistent farmer/herder clashes in Nigeria.

Jatau stated this during the training of 30 artificial insemination service providers for the Niger State Livestock Productivity and Resilience Support Project (L-PRESS), which was held in Minna.

He said that while efforts were being made to reach out to some of the indigenous livestock farmers to adopt the biotechnology, cultural barriers have become a hard nut to crack, noting that such cultural barriers have been stopping them from fully accepting the biotechnology.

“Artificial insemination has a lot of advantages. If you want to go into dairy production, and you use a dairy breed, for instance, the Frisian, in terms of quantity of milk, there is no breeding that surpasses the Frisian. I have seen farms, because their management is good, they used the Frisian and the offspring were producing between 15 and 30 litres of milk, which even surpasses what some pure exotic breeds are producing. The difference is management and that is why there is no substitute to good management vis-à-vis good nutrition and good healthcare.

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“There are a few local livestock farmers, the Fulani, who have adopted this biotechnology. For instance, in Bauchi, there was a farmer who had his animal inseminated and the first offspring he got, which was a female, matured, got pregnant and delivered. It was during the dry season. He left some 15 indigenous breeds at home, along with that first-generation cross. But the milk that was produced by the 15 indigenous cows he left at home for the family was not as much as the one produced by the offspring alone. So, a lot of local farmers were coming around and the place became like a tourist centre. Some of the indigenous farmers who have adopted the technology have seen the benefits.

“During our extension services, some enlightened herders heard about the technology and they came around and when we inseminated their animals, they experienced improvement in milk production. When those calves are born, the offspring are usually bigger and heavier than our indigenous breed. We have been trying to encourage them, but because they find some challenges in the management of the offspring, some of them allow that to discourage them.

“In some of the other African countries, you will find a farmer with just three cows, but the entire family is depending on those few animals because if you have three cows that can give you between 15 and 20 litres of milk in a day, that will give you huge financial profit every day that you may no longer depend on a government job.  If a litre of milk is sold at N1,000 in a month, you have earned N1.8 million with just three cows. That alone can feed the animals, take care of their health, pay your workers and you too can eat good food and take care of other needs and still keep some change,” he explained. 

He said with the scarcity of space for grazing, artificial insemination is the best method livestock farmers can adopt to mitigate farmers/herder conflict across the country, saying that “if our people can just learn to adopt this bio technology, you find out that what three to five animals can give you, 100 of our indigenous cows cannot give you. So, that is an advantage.”

He said the training by Livestock Genetics Africa often lays emphasis on semen handling because an inseminator could be good technically, but if his or her semen handling is poor, it will affect the conception rate that will come out.

Jatau lamented that artificial insemination in Nigeria dates back to 1949 when semen was taken from Shika stock farm in Zaria to the farm at Vom, but the lack of consistency in the policies of the government has continued to draw the system back.