What do you get when you cross pig semen with coconut water?
A project in Uganda found this mixture to be a breeding breakthrough in local swine production.
The pork industry has great demand within the country of Uganda, as it supplies livelihoods to over 1.1 million households, according to the International Livestock Research Institute.
Current Breeding Protocols
Breeding protocols within the region are poor due to a lack of resources.
Many small pig farmers keep poor breeds, which result in low growth rates, few piglets produced and poor-quality pork with little lean meat, says a SciDev.Net article.
In addition, natural mating in Uganda comes with a list of risks.
It’s not uncommon for a community to share one or two boars to breed all sows in the area, leading to increased disease transmission and inbreeding that produces poor quality offspring, explains Anthony Egeru, community project lead at RUFORUM. With African swine fever top of mind, the movement of boars from one place to another is not a biosecure practice.
Benefits of Coconut Water
Researchers with the RUFORUM community action program found coconut water serves as liquid gold, making artificial insemination available to swine producers in Uganda.
Using fresh coconut water from five-month-old fruit—known to be rich in sodium and potassium—aids in insertion and delivery of the semen into the female pig’s reproductive canal, describes Elly Ndyomugyenyi, the project’s lead researcher and senior lecturer at the department of animal production at Uganda’s Gulu University.
Ndyomugyenyi adds, the collection of boar semen from superior boars to be used through artificial insemination will improve the genotypes and increase productivity in the local pig herd.
Coconut fruits are readily available in local markets and are easily accessible to pig producers in almost every part of the African continent.
Nutrient-dense coconut water also helps increase the number of viable live spermatozoa cells and extends their life, adds Joab Malanda, a pig production expert at the department of animal science at Egerton University in Kenya.
“Outside a boar’s body, the spermatozoa will live for about four hours, after which they start to die due to starvation and temperature change. But when it is added to coconut water, they will live for up to 96 hours, allowing insemination at the appropriate time,” Malanda says.
Adding the semen to coconut water allows the semen to be divided up to 10 times to be used to breed 10 sows instead of one.
The future of this breakthrough will depend on farmers learning how to do the insemination, as well as being trained in the extraction and preservation of the semen, Malanda adds.
Farmers under this community action project have also been trained in better husbandry and have organized into a pig farmers’ association—something that never previously existed in the area, Egeru says.
