Doung Commune, Cambodia – Rolling out the artificial insemination programme for cattle in Cambodia would open up market opportunities and increase farmers’ income, according to researchers and veterinary officials in the province where a pilot programme is under way with support from the IAEA and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Local farmers involved in the programme can fetch US$ 1000 for their cattle – double the rate for cattle bred through traditional methods.
Cows born as a result of artificial insemination using the semen of superior bull breeds are a lot more valuable because of their larger size and higher meat quality, said Chantry Chin, the District Veterinarian in Bati, 50 kilometres south of the capital Phnom Penh and the area at the heart of the pilot project. Local cattle had historically been bred as draft animals, to pull carts and ploughs, rather than for their meat. Following the mechanization of much of the country’s agriculture in recent years, they are now raised for their meat, but their beef is not of high enough quality, Chin said. As a result, they fetch only low prices.
Two of the four cows of Phaly Chil, a small scale farmer in Doung, have been bred through artificial insemination, and the one that has already matured is over a third bigger than its mother. Chil expects each of the cows to fetch 4 million riels (US$ 1000), double the price that regular, local breed cows are worth. “Several traders have stopped by already, but I am not selling until she is fully mature,” Chil said of the larger of her two cows born as a result of artificially insemination. The amount she expects to get for each of these superior animals equals the annual income of her husband, a day labourer in the nearby city.
Cambodia is among a growing number of developing countries making use of various nuclear and isotopic technologies to support genetic selection procedures and improve the gene pool of its livestock. Read more here on how such techniques contribute to the production of high quality semen.