Improving livestock production through artificial insemination in Zanzibar, Tanzania

Zanzibar marks 2017 as the 20^th anniversary year of being a Tsetse free Island due to the intervention carried out by the IAEA and other partners. Before the tsetse eradication from the island, all efforts to improve and intensify livestock production in Zanzibar continued to be hampered by a number of constraints, livestock disease being the most important. Up to 1997, trypanosomosis was the most important disease constraining livestock production in Zanzibar. To control and eradicate this disease, a joint effort between the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Government of Zanzibar (GoZ) was initiated from 1985 to 1993. This effort succeeded to a large extent in controlling tsetse fly populations and in reducing the incidence of trypanosomosis, but never managed to eradicate the disease. Long term use of prophylactic or curative drugs for trypanosome suppression was not practicable or economical. Rather, interruption of transmission by vector eradication was considered the most viable long term solution. In 1994, the IAEA introduced the sterile insect technique (SIT) under project URT/5/016, 'Tsetse Fly Eradication on Zanzibar', which contributed to the total eradication of the pest. The introduction of exotic breeds of cattle after Tsetse eradication and the use of Artificial Insemination to zebu cattle in Zanzibar has improved milk production (an average of 10 litres per cow per day in cross bred compared to 2 litres of milk per day from zebu cattle) and hence improved income, nutrition and food security in the country (meat and milk). The future plan between the IAEA and the Department of Livestock Development in Zanzibar is to continue with collaboration in improving the indigenous zebu cattle through artificial insemination and the use of radioimmunoassay (RIA) as the means of early pregnancy detection in cattle. (author)