Efforts to improve livestock services

Source: http://www.thenational.com.pg/?q=node/31500

The National, Tuesday 17th April 2012

By JAMES LARAKI

SPEAKING at the closing of a workshop on scoping new livestock research opportunities in Papua New Guinea held at the National Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) headquarters last week, director-general Dr Raghunath Ghodake noted that not much has been done in terms of research and development in the livestock sector.
“We have been really struggling in livestock research and development in the country over the past 10-15 years despite its importance,” Ghodake said.
He called on all partners of the proposed project to work together to improve livestock services in the country to make a significant contribution to the livelihoods of rural people.
“We need real partnership as a lot of issues need to be addressed in terms of livestock research and development.”
As indicated by Ghodake, research and development in the livestock sector has been struggling for a while. This is an indication that current support provided is inadequate to meet the needs of smallholders.
The sector makes significant contributions to the livelihoods of more than 600,000 smallholders, mainly through subsistence and small commercial production of pigs and poultry with cattle, small ruminants and inland aquaculture playing an increasing role. However, there are number of constraints limiting the people from benefiting from these enterprises and efforts are urgently required to improving livestock services.
We hope the proposed project will address these constraints, as the current support at the national, provincial and local levels are inadequate. The proposed project would hopefully provide an opportunity to evaluate current services (if any), design simple and more effective support network for smallholders and build capacity to ensure services can be sustainably provided to the sector.
The proposed project “improving smallholder livelihood through enabling livestock services in PNG” promises to have a major impact in the overall livestock services in the country. The workshop held last week was to gather all potential partners to refine and put together a project proposal to the Australian Centre for International Agricultural (ACIAR) for funding. This was done after a draft concept, prepared by NARI, was agreed to in principle by ACIAR. The centre had then requested for a full proposal to be submitted for consideration.
The overall aim of the project is to build an effective basic livestock health and production service, involving the identification, surveillance and management of health and production issues and market access constraints on smallholder and commercial farms.
The project is also expected to develop specific objectives under this broad objective to prioritise primary animal health and production issues in major smallholder and commercial livestock farms and develop an appropriate animal health and production management plan. Further research are planned in priority areas to focus on instance of major internal and external parasites of livestock on smallholder farms, reproduction and mortality issues and develop management and treatment strategies to resolve the problems.
The project is expected to address key research question regarding common animal health, production and market constraints in priority livestock species. The role of improved housing, hygiene, animal management and nutrition and use of local herbal medicines on animal health and reproduction on profitability of smallholder semi-intensive and commercial livestock enterprises will also be addressed. It is also expected to look into overall management issues and capacity building needs both at farmer and institutional levels.
The project, to be coordinated from the James Cook University in Australia, will involve eight partners including NARI, University of Technology, University of Natural Resource and Environment, National Agricultural Quarantine and Inspection Authority and the Australian partners including the University of Adelaide, Charles Stuart University, South Australian Research and Development Institute and James Cook University. The Department of Agriculture and Livestock and Lutheran Development Services have indicated their interest to be partners.
We hope that with the strong partnership arrangement in place, some efforts towards improving livestock services will be addressed, particularly in animal health and production. Poor housing and management, inadequate nutrition, poor reproduction, high mortality of young stock and poor access to emerging urban markets are some issues that have been neglected over the years and we hope the project will address them.
Past efforts may not have seriously addressed these constraints.
NARI’s research effort in livestock has been focusing on feeding systems. This resulted in successful development of feeding options for poultry (broiler) and growing pigs using locally available resources. The broiler concentrate and pig silage using sweet potato have been officially released to the farming community and are being promoted for smallholders farmers to trial them.
The proposed project can build on lessons learnt from these projects and other relevant projects relating to animal health and production undertaken elsewhere.
While proposed project looks promising, any useful output, we assume, can be delivered from a collaborative effort from all partners. The proposed project has all relevant agencies concerned with livestock on board. We, hope the partners will establish a “real partnership” and really work together as called on by Ghodake for us all to contribute towards improving livestock services in the country.

Live Export-Philippines

The smaller holder cattle farmers in Sialum are very dedicated to their herds. They have in the past seen the fruit of their labor. In the year 2004, the farmers organized a big live cattle shipment to Philippines. The live cows were from Kumukio, Kelanoa, Kangkeu, Keburum, Sialum, Qambu, Nanda and Wandokai.

All the cows were rounded and brought to Kelanoa and were put in a big stock yard waiting for the barge to deliver to Lae. The barge was organized by Ramu Agri Business. It loaded the cows for 6 hours. There were two shipments in total. The barge transferred the herds onto a foreign going barge at the Lae main wharf. After every necessary document was completed the barge left for Philippines.

This export fetched the small holders of Sialum a total of $2 million. This was a great achievement for the farmers. The market for live export is there but there is no one to organize this type of shipment. It the mercy of the Ramu Agri-Business the last shipment was made.

Currently, the farmers sell their cattle to either Trukai Agriculture a subsidiary of Trukai Industries or Ramu Agri-Business. They also do some local sales. This is especially done during festive seasons example Christmas and other occasions where a lot of cows are to be slaughter.

Smaller Holder Cattle Farmers-Sialum

Cattle herd rearing on the open field grassland



A cowboy and kid checking the herds for infection and diseases



Sialum is one of the major producer of cows in Papua New Guinea by small family and clan owned farms. Cow is reared on the grass land owned them. The villagers own at least two cows in this small holder farms. The cows are left on the grass land to roam and feed on the kunai grass. Weekly the  cowboys check for any infection or sick amongs the cattle herd. They move all the herd to a particular place called the stock yard to actually to the check ups. After two years a calf is ready as a steer or prime bull to be sold. The sales is either live cow or butchered into pieces, weight and sold. The Sialum smaller farmers prefer the live cow sales. Once their herds were exported to Philipines at a tune of $2 milion. The farmers still do not have an established market. Currently, they sell to either Ramu Sugar or Trukai Industry. They have expressed their oppinion to sell to the Krumbukari Nickle & Cobalt mine refinery catering company. Transport is a major obsticle to do their sales to this prospective customer.