NABDA begins semen collection for livestock production

The National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA) has commenced semen collection and preservation to improve the livestock industry in Nigeria.

This is coming as a result of the continued importation of illegal semen into the country, which has become deadly to the livestock industry as a result of the outbreak of some diseases.

Addressing journalists at the Stakeholders session on National Strategy and Action Plan for Animal Genetic Resources in Nigeria,  the Director General of NABDA, Professor Lucy Ogbadu, said it has become pertinent to collect and preserve animal semen following the unprofessional way Nigerians handle the genetic resources.

According to her “we are starting livestock semen collection and preservation in NABDA, and we want to see how we can all work together so that we work along the target of addressing national problems.

“Starting with semen collection and preservation programme, we want to see how we can harness all the efforts that is going on in our various research institutes”.

She explained that sometimes an exotic breed is imported into the country, after some times, the breed will vanish from the country because the genetic resources were not handled properly.

She said there must be protocols in place for anyone to gather genetic resources and preserve them.

She said the Animal Genetic Resources Research Group, will ensure “we are going to have improvement in our livestock industry, through the harnessing of this efforts, we will be able to have improvement in our livestock industry.

“Some people come here and take our genetic materials away, improve on it and make it their own, we can equally do that within the country and have an improvement in our livestock industry.

Professor Ogbadu said a lot of semen imported into Nigeria may come here and deteriorate because we don’t know the state of the semen.

“But with standard protocol of collecting the semen and preserving them, it will take us somewhere, we will continue to improve on it.

“We are starting with the preservation of rabbit semen, but it will not be limited to that, we will begin with those of importance to us as a nation”, she added.