Hybrid Goats Not a Sure Way of Fighting Poverty

from All Africa

New Vision (Kampala)

By Joshua Kato and Ronald Kalyango
Kampala

FARMERS are given hybrid goats and promised that it will help them get out of poverty. However, they claim the goats have so many hindrances that delivering them from poverty may not come easily.

At the moment, the Government is promoting the rearing of hybrid goats, mainly from South Africa.

Dr. Olaho Mukani, the director of animal resources, says the Boer goats were first imported by Makerere University 10 years ago for research purposes.

In 2003, 500 goats were imported out of which 400 were given to farmers in exchange for four local goats each. The remaining 100 were stocked at Rubona Stock Farm and Njeru for multiplication purposes.

Hybrid goats produce more and grow bigger than local goats. They also grow much faster. A typical Boer can grow to more than 50kgs. Females can produce about six kids at a go and they produce twice a year.

Joseph Masaba, a senior technician in livestock breeding at the National Resources Research Institute (NALIRI), says a boer goat, if well fed can gain between 35 kilos and 40 kilos. "Hence they produce more meat than the local breeds that take between two to three years to gain 20kgs," Masaba says.

One he-goat can be given to a group of farmers in a village and the farmers can bring their she-goats siring. The target is that gradually, many farmers will rear hybrid goats. This was the case in Bamunanika in Luwero district, says Steven Sserwanga one of the farmers in Bamunanika.

When a pure buck (he-goat) mates with a local breed, the product is 50% hybrid and when the 50% offsprings mate with the pure Boer, the product is 75% hybrid.

On the market, a pure Boer buck costs between sh800,000 and sh1m. A 50% costs about sh200,000, while a 75% costs about sh350,000 while the local breeds cost between sh30,000 and 60,000. As a result, many local consumers look for the cheap local goats instead of going for the expensive Boer goats.

According to goat keepers, goats - especially white ones - have a big market in the Middle East.

However, the numbers produced are still very low to sustain the market.

Paul Ssembeguya, the proprietor of Ssembeguya Estates, one of the largest goat breeding centres in the country, says they need to export at least 16,000 goats weekly to sustain the middle eastern market.

Many contractors hired by the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) programme to supply 75% breeds cheated and supplied either 50% breeds or even local breeds at the price of the 75% breeds. "We received goats that were quoted highly, but we realised they were poor breeds. This has discouraged us from rearing goats," says a farmer.

Under the NAADS programme, many of the goats were over priced, almost four times their real value. In Tororo, several farmers refused to accept a delivery of the prized 'hybrid' goats with each valued at sh400,000.

In mid-western Uganda, the Government has an agreement with Ssembeguya Estates to supply goats to the region.

The initial agreement was worth over sh6b, although the Government failed to meet their part of the bargain. However, Ssembeguya Estates entered another agreement with NAADS to supply 395 improved goats to farmers in Ssembabule.

Ssembeguya says it was expected that at the end of the contract, the number of farmers adopting goat production would have gone up. Last year, Ssembeguya supplied some of the goats to farmers, but the farmers were not impressed.

"The goats look old and tired. They have even failed to deliver," one of the farmers said.

However, officials at Ssembeguya Estates claim they supplied the right goats, arguing that the farmers might have failed to adhere to the maintenance guidelines.

The other problem is that when it comes to selling the goats for meat, the market is still low. As a result, many farmers are stuck with the hybrid goats. "People still want to eat the smaller and less fatty traditional goats," says a farmer. He says his goats produce six litres of milk a day, which he consumes at home because of lack of market.

More so, many farmers think pigs produce results faster than goats. While a goat needs at least a year to produce one or two kids, a pig needs nine months to produce about 10 piglets.

Overall, the Boer goats are a good option for quick and mass production of goats. However, more awareness is still needed for the project to succeed.

Supervision at delivery must also be improved, if the right breeds are to be given to farmers. It is because of poor supervision that some breeders distributed poor goats.

"The process has entirely proved to be a success. The challenges now are to produce more in order to sustain bigger markets," says Mukani.