Science takes bull scarcity by the horns

Cape Town – Emerging farmers have only around 32 000 bulls for their million cows. It would be a logistical nightmare to purchase the quantity required and it would simply be too expensive.

“We’ll now use science and technology to get more bulls,” said Professor Lucky Nedambale of the Animal Production Institute at the Agricultural Research Council (ARC). Artificial insemination and embryo-transfer techniques will be used.

The project is estimated to cost R24m.

“One of the major challenges for emerging farmers is that they do not have sufficient bulls of a high quality,” said Nedambale. “The consequence is that herds increase slowly while there is a lack of high-quality genetic material.”

It would appear that almost 40% of South Africa's cattle are owned by emerging farmers, but their contribution to the country's meat production is a mere 5%. The problem is aggravated by the death of half the calves born, compared with only 2% of those in the herds of commercial farmers.

It is estimated that there are more than one million cows in the emerging sector but apparently only 32 000 bulls available for breeding. That's a ratio of one bull for around 31 cows. The acceptable ratio is one bull for every 25 cows.

The embryos are cultivated in the ARC’s Institute in Pretoria, frozen and then taken to the rural areas where cows are artificially inseminated.

The aim of the project is to produce 400 bull calves per province every year from 2 125 cows undergoing such treatment.

Nedambale said the advanced technology is being applied in the commercial sector. By taking it into the emerging sector, skills transfer takes place and this shows that science can be harnessed for socio-economic development.