A High Breed Goat for a Dollar

Michael Wakabi

25 April 2011

Nairobi — Gideon Nadiope, a vet in Kamuli district of eastern Uganda, could be holding the key to East Africa’s goat farming business.

He is developing a technology which, if widely adopted, could help improve indigenous goat breeds faster, ending nearly a decade of trials.

Dr Nadiope, 42, has perfected artificial insemination (AI) in goats, a technology that until now was thought to be unviable.

Today, for just Ushs 3,000 ($1.2) small holder farmers in Kamuli are able to crossbreed indigenous goats with purebred Boers through artificial insemination.

That compares with the $150 it would typically cost to buy an in-kid Boer imported from South Africa.

Nadiope’s work is so significant that it is one of the technologies that have been adopted for dissemination by the Community Animal Health Network, a regional forum.

His 12-acre farm in Kabukye village has become a frequent host to visitors from Uganda’s universities as they seek to replicate his success.

Uganda’s journey to AI in goats dates back to the late 1990s, soon after Nadiope graduated as a veterinary assistant.

He and a couple of friends looked at ways of offering artificial insemination services to cattle farmers in Busoga.

The business worked well. In three years, Nadiope’s centres had reached 15,000 farmers.

His team of 12 was on average carrying 44 inseminations per month.

It also emerged that many more farmers were interested in AI but Nadiope’s team were constrained by lack of sufficient supply of liquid nitrogen.

Also, a number of farmers did not have sufficient land to raise cattle but had interest in improving their goats.

“They asked if we could apply AI in goats but, at the time, the technology did not exist, so we looked at Bucks/male goats,” Nadiope says.

They secured four Bucks from Kenya and dispersed them to Busota, Budondo, Iganga CMS and Buyuge locations — separated by more than 60 kilometres — to act as breeding stock.

Farmers were trained in general handling and management of the improved goats, with an emphasis on benefits such as increased meat production, higher growth rate of the crossbred and increased milk yields, as well as the application of droppings as manure to improve crop production. The Bucks were rotated to avoid in-breeding.

The break for Nadiope came much later in 2005 when Dr Lorna Brown, an animal breeder in the UK who was already applying AI to sheep, wrote enquiring about possible collaboration.

Nadiope saw an opportunity to transfer Dr Brown’s expertise in sheep to goats, so he arranged for her to come over to Kabukye.

Their initial attempt at AI for goats was low, though he had bought 40 indigenous goats and imported 300 doses of goat semen from South Africa.

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