Zambian Scientists Help Small Farmers with Improved Livestock | Voice of America - English
/*-->*/  /*-->*/  /*-->*/  */  /*-->*/  /*-->*/ In southern Zambia, the threat of a deepening international recession has inspired a team of researchers, scientists and farmers to come up with improved livestock to help uplift the livelihoods of small holder farmers. From the town of Choma, VOA Reporter Sanday Chongo Kabange highlights the improvements being made to indigenous Zambian chickens and goats.   The Choma-based Batoka Livestock Development Center is breeding high-producing imported cows and goats to breed with local varieties that are resistant to disease and high temperatures.
Thetypes of goats we keep around are dwarfs," explains Mutiba, "almost the size of cocks. So what we have done is to import some improved goats from down South(South Africa) where they share a similar environment with Zambia. These,called Boer Goats, are much heavier than the local goats. By bringing these in, the idea is that themales are produced and given to farmers for cross breeding with local goats." Let?sproduce the right type of animal (cow) for these small scale farmers. By theright type of animal they [mean cross breeding domestic and foreign cows]: [the foreign ones] are highproducers (of milk) but only under very good conditions and improvedmanagement. The local (indigenous) animal is a low producer but survives underharsh conditions (non-tropical). So if you cross the two then you get theproductivity of that exotic animal and the hardiness of that indigenous animal?an animal that can produce reasonably well under harsh conditions." TheCenter is also working to produce tastier poultry. [Regarding]the texture of the meat," he says, "we want to make it so soft so that people can enjoy it[without] running to GMO (genetically modified organisms). What we are doing isfeeding these (local) chickens on high protein legumes which they are eating toimprove their build up."