Artificial Insemination lab to be advanced this year

Apr 10, 2014 News

– Guyana looking to harvest semen

From strictly storing and processing imported semen, Guyana is now looking to harvest its own.
This is according to the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, who, in an invited comment yesterday, said that this will be another undertaking of the Artificial Insemination Laboratory located at Mon Repos, East Coast Demerara.
The Minister in his deliberations during the 2014 Budget Debate noted that the facility will be upgraded and enhanced so as to take on the new task.

Twin calves born under the Artificial Insemination programme

Dr. Ramsammy said that the semen will be harvested from Guyana’s line of improved bulls. He added that the lab will also be expanded to accelerate the embryo transfer program.
“The AI (artificial insemination) program allows us to improve breed through production of mixed breed, buy embryo transfers and involve production of pure breeds,” the Minister explained.
As the Agriculture Ministry seeks to improve the livestock industry, Dr. Ramsammy recently told Kaieteur News that artificial insemination trials done in 2013 have recorded a 60% success.
“This is a significant achievement for us, especially because the accomplishment globally is recorded at merely 40 per cent,” the Minister said during an interview.
He highlighted that approximately 2500 artificial insemination trials were done in 2013. This is in addition to 63 successful embryo transplants.
“We want to improve the success rate by at least 20 percent this year,” the Minister said yesterday.
As part of its 2014 agenda, Dr. Ramsammy said that his Ministry, via the Guyana Livestock Development Authority (GLDA) is looking to have the artificial insemination trials kick up to about 3000. This, he pointed out, would be in addition to a projected 150 embryo transfers for 2014.
This would see Guyanese scientists transferring embryos where local animals are used as surrogate mothers for high standard genetics. These procedures are currently being done at the AI Lab.
The $28.2M facility was commissioned in October 2012, with the aim of producing animals with higher quality genetics. That would ultimately result in better quality and export-ready meat, while ensuring food security.
This initiative, the Minister had said, would also seek to protect Guyana’s status as the food basket of the Caribbean.
Dr. Ramsammy explained that if Guyana wants to enhance its economy and ensure food safety, producing meat of better size and quality is vital. Thus, high quality genetics is the way forward, as it will enable scientists to produce better breeds of animals that are of international standards.
Over the past year, there was an increase in the importation of animals for the purpose of creating better breeds. This would result in Guyana being more equipped and qualified to export its meat rather than importing it, as is being done at a high cost.
In a previous interview, Dr. Ramsammy had said that Guyana has a large import food bill and that it was to this end, that the artificial insemination initiative was set up under the Agriculture Diversification Programme (ADP).
The ADP is there to establish services and institutions for a sustainable increase in the income derived from the export of non-traditional agricultural exports in the aquaculture, fruits and vegetables and livestock sub-sectors.
Under this programme, 33 bulls were imported from Florida at a cost of $26M. These bulls are of the species- Brahman, Beef Master and Brangus. Each cost roughly about $800,000, and are commonly used for breeding and meat purposes.
The Agriculture Ministry has since included the importation of sheep for the same purpose.
The semen of these animals is extracted, evaluated, preserved and processed at the AI laboratory. In 2013, as a result of the Artificial Insemination Programme, the GLDA welcomed six sets of twins.
The facility was funded by the Government of Guyana, in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).